Gov. Josh Stein raised a giant pair of red scissors Thursday, joining local and state officials who cut the ribbon on Orange County’s newest manufacturing facility in Mebane.
Thermo Fisher Scientific’s 375,000-square-foot facility, which opened last year on West Ten Road, produces precision pipette tips and kits for bioscience, research and diagnostics, including DNA analysis, medical testing, and laboratory research.
It’s the result of a $192.5 million “strategic co-investment” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aimed at building flexibility and redundancy into the nation’s capacity to produce biotech equipment, company officials have said.
“The opening of this facility is a testament to the strengthening of our supply chain, especially in light of the vulnerabilities and disruptions that we all experience during the COVID pandemic,” Stein said Thursday. “By ensuring a reliable domestic supply chain of pipette tips ... this facility will meet a critical national need and help us overcome hurdles in the future.”
Boston-based Thermo Fisher employs 7,800 people across North Carolina, including in Asheville, Durham, Raleigh, Greenville and High Point. Company officials said 46 employees work in Mebane with plans to hire over 100.
The facility can produce 43 million pipette tips a year, they said during Thursday’s tour.
Robots, workers focus on quality
Employees and visitors donned black lab coats, goggles and other protective gear before entering the massive “clean room” Thursday, where robotic arms in big glass boxes injected plastic into the molds. Each piece was pressed into the desired shape, before being labeled and photographed by one of 12 cameras.
Each injection molding machine can produce about 19,000 tips an hour, a tour guide said.
Other robots check for defects, removing and replacing pipette tips and kits that don’t make the cut, before dropping them into totes that employees move to a central staging area. Each one has a radio-frequency identification tag to prevent cross-contamination.
“A single rack of pipette tips produced here might touch the hands of researchers in Nairobi, Boston or São Paulo, each one using them to advance science,” said Erica Hirsch, president of Thermo Fisher.
“One of our customers, a leading gene and protein therapy company based here in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, has long relied on our pipettes and clip tips in their quality control and research processes,” she said. “Soon, those same tools will be made here in Mebane, supporting a customer at the cutting edge of life-saving medicine.”
Attractive to business, new residents
Stein called the facility “a shining example of how public-private partnerships can rebuild American manufacturing.” He noted that CNBC just named North Carolina the top state in the nation for business — the third time in four years the state earned the honor.
More than 840 life science companies and 2,500 related companies in the state provide over 225,000 jobs, Stein said. The industry generates $88.3 billion in annual economic activity for the state, $12 billion in pharmaceutical exports, and $2.5 billion in state and local revenues, he added.
Thermo Fisher’s Mebane facility will also produce a lighter environmental impact, achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, said Sandy Pound, Thermo Fisher vice president and chief communications officer.
She noted the company is recruiting skilled workers from across the region and growing partnerships with local community colleges and state universities.
But it was Mebane’s quality of life that attracted them, she said.
Mayor Ed Hooks echoed those remarks, saying previous residents built the foundation for a better future.
“It is the warmth of our neighborhoods, the ingenuity of our workforce, the possibility of our people that make the city a place where businesses flourish and families thrive,” Hooks said. “Growth and location are the framework, but quality of life is the heart.”
Buckhorn commerce district growing
Orange County and Mebane officials have worked together for over 20 years to bring more industry and distribution centers to the Buckhorn economic development district, located south of Interstates 85/40 between Buckhorn Road and the interstate split.
The district, roughly 900 acres identified in 1981, remained undeveloped until water and sewer lines were installed several years ago.
Japanese candy maker Morinaga was the first company they landed, opening in 2013 and currently expanding.
It was followed by Medline, which opened a medical supply distribution center in 2023 on West Ten Road, and Mid-Atlantic STIHL, which opened its regional distribution and training facility in April. North of the interstate, Swiss industrial equipment maker ABB expanded its operation to 600,000 square feet in 2019.
Thermo Fisher Scientific announced its plans for Mebane in 2021, paying $41 million for the site, which has a second, 205,200-square-foot industrial building now being marketed.
More warehouses and distribution centers are underway, including across West Ten Road, where Greensboro-based R+L Carriers was approved last year to build a 135,950-square-foot trucking depot building on just over 82 acres, replacing the Buckhorn Jockey Lot & Flea Market.
Developer Al Neyer is also building a 115-acre light industrial park across Buckhorn Road, behind Petro Stopping Center, which is slated for a fire station and five light industrial and warehouse buildings.