Global corporation Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. at home in Rockford
ROCKFORD — Thermo Fisher Scientific’s corporate headquarters may be in Waltham, Massachusetts, but it has a long heritage in Rockford.
Located at 3747 N. Meridian Road, Thermo Fisher is one of the area’s foremost research firms. The company serves customers worldwide, including biotech and pharmaceutical companies, clinical diagnostic labs and hospitals, government agencies, research organizations, universities, and environmental and industrial quality-control settings.
It’s the strong partnerships within the community, said Jim Turmo, site leader and operations director, that has helped the 65-year-old company grow from a small operation to a multibillion dollar operation.
Thermo Fisher has 50,000 employees at 600 global locations and $17 billion in revenues. It produces one million different products. Its premier brands are Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services.
The strong and competitive workforce in Rockford, Turmo said, “attracts protein research experts from all over the globe.” More than 50 of those, he said, have their doctorate degrees. The highly-scientific conglomerate provides analytical instruments, equipment, reagents and consumables, software and services for research, analysis, discovery and diagnostics.
In the 50 countries it serves, the customer base works in various fields from science and health, to education and law. Its products include protein analysis, technologies for mass spectrometry and molecular spectroscopy, cell culture, elemental analysis and immunodiagnostic testing, to name a few.
“An important piece of our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. The Rockford site is engaged in the healthier piece of that mission,” Turmo said. “What Rockford is focused on is the development and manufacturing of products for protein research that our typical customer is using for health care research discovery.”
Marc N. Casper, president and CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific, said customers want his company to help them accelerate results and improve productivity.
"We are committed to developing new products that make our industry-leading technologies available to a broader base of customers and set new standards for detection and quantification in applied markets,” Casper said.
The Rockford facility is leading Thermo Fisher Scientific’s efforts in researching, developing, manufacturing and bringing to market cutting-edge products, Turbo said. Those products are used by scientists in academic, pharmaceutical and other research laboratories to identify and better understand proteins, which are building blocks, engines and messengers for all cells, he said.
“The work that takes place in Rockford is very essential in our product-line and how we support our customers,” said Mauricio Minotta, director of public relations.