On May 18, 2020, Thermo Fisher Scientific announced it had received a contract from the U.S. government to provide highly specialized viral transport media (VTM) for COVID-19 sample collection. The VTM is used during collection of patient samples for proper transport to laboratories that can test for the presence of the virus.

Thermo Fisher currently produces VTM at its site in Lenexa, Kansas, which has ramped production from 50,000 to more than one million VTM-filled tubes per week.