The facility is the largest Thermo Fisher Scientific centre in the north of England and one of its biggest in the UK.

Thermo Fisher chose the northwest of England as home for the new facility because of the strength of the region's academic, hospital, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry sectors. The new facility has created approximately 60 new jobs, and the total workforce onsite is now more than 200.

The new facility houses Thermo Fisher's Anatomical Pathology and Chromatography Consumables businesses. This includes products and services to improve the detection and diagnosis of cancer and advance research for drug development.

In addition, the facility is a manufacturing centre for Thermo Fisher's Chromatography Consumables business. These products are used in laboratories specializing in chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis: they enable detection, quantification and isolation of complex sample mixtures that are commonly encountered in pharmaceutical, environmental, biomedical, chemical, toxicology, forensics and food safety industries.

Giulio Cerroni, the company's vice president of Anatomical Pathology commercial operations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, said: ‘We are delighted to announce the opening of the new Thermo Fisher Scientific facility in Runcorn, Cheshire. This is an important investment for the company, and we are already considering the next phase of development for the site.

‘As the world leader in serving science, our customers and suppliers rightly expect that we set very high standards in our operations. The new facility in Runcorn demonstrates the company's commitment to better serving our customers by investing in the future of the business.’

The new facility was officially opened by Dr Yuh-geng Tsay, president, Specialty Diagnostics and Dr Roger Platt, chairman, Northwest Science Council. The ceremony also included presentations by Steven Broomhead, chief executive, NWDA and Thermo Fisher Scientific customers.