Industry News

Temple University's School of Pharmacy opened a 700-sf drug manufacturing facility in February of 2006. Located on the fourth floor of the pharmacy school building in north Philadelphia, the facility adheres to FDA cGMP requirements and features a sophisticated air-filtration system, a non-porous ceiling, and seamless flooring. The plant will manufacture capsules and tablets used in phase-I and phase-II clinical trials in batches of between 1,000 and 100,000 units.

Biotech giant Amgen will expand its South San Francisco campus with the addition of 500,000 sf of R&D space over the next three years. The first 92,000-sf facility is under construction; a second 92,000-sf structure will break ground in spring of 2006. The two buildings will house up to 700 employees total. Amgen also has an option to occupy three new adjacent buildings, yet to be constructed, with footprints of 100,000 sf each.

Nova Southeastern University (NSU) will construct a 208,000-sf research facility on its Fort Lauderdale, Fla., campus. Slated for completion in late 2008 to mid-2009, the six-story building will house wet labs for use by the programs of dentistry, osteopathic medicine, oceanography, and pharmacology. The building, which will feature an enhanced communications infrastructure connected to other Florida universities, will accommodate NSU's information technology department. The U.S.

Stanford University School of Medicine has selected NBBJ of San Francisco to design the new $128-million Learning and Knowledge Center in Palo Alto, Calif. The project will be constructed on the site of the existing Fairchild Auditorium and will include renovations to the Lane and Always buildings. The 120,000-sf center will break ground in 2007 with completion expected in 2009.

The University of Washington is nearing completion on construction of the new William H. Foege Building in Seattle. Providing a central home for the Department of Bioengineering, the 260,000-sf, $150-million facility broke ground in 2001.