Ohio State University began construction in January of 2019 on the $59 million Biomedical and Materials Engineering Complex in Columbus. Featuring interactive laboratories for experiential learning, the five-story, 124,000-sf facility will provide an atrium, a 150-seat auditorium, two undergraduate computer labs, five classrooms, and open lab neighborhoods for faculty and graduate research.
Global life science company Promega is constructing a $190 million research and development center on its existing campus in Fitchburg, Wis. Offering laboratories with sophisticated infrastructure to support the creation of innovative bioscience products and technologies, the three-story, 270,000-sf facility will enable the consolidation of operations currently located in three separate buildings. Ground was broken on the project in July of 2018 and occupancy is expected in fall of 2020.
Brammer Bio is developing two gene therapy manufacturing facilities in Massachusetts. The company will build out 35,000 sf in an existing 50,000-sf structure in Lexington to create a cGMP manufacturing and quality control operations center. Additionally, Brammer will renovate 8,000 sf in its 66,000-sf commercial cGMP plant in Cambridge to create new production suites to support manufacturing capacity expansion. DPS Group is providing architectural and engineering services for both projects, which are slated for completion in mid-2019.
Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics is creating a stem cell manufacturing center in Madison, Wis. Located in the University Research Park, the $21 million project involves the renovation of 31,500 sf in a facility near the company's existing lab and office building. The completed biomanufacturing plant will meet the requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Completion is expected by March of 2020.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston opened a $15 million facility for the School of Biomedical Informatics in December of 2018. Located in the Texas Medical Center, the two-story, 44,709-sf project is the first freestanding school of biomedical informatics in the United States and was constructed on top of an existing parking garage.
Sanofi announced the lease of 900,000 sf in two buildings in the Cambridge Crossing development in December of 2018. The French pharmaceutical manufacturer will occupy approximately a fifth of the 45-acre campus spanning Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. The project will provide collaborative laboratory and office space for 2,700 Sanofi employees.
16 Tech Community Corporation broke ground in December of 2018 on the $30 million Advanced Research and Innovation Facility in Indianapolis. The Indiana Biosciences Research Institute will lease over 67,000 sf on the first three floors of the building to accommodate researchers engaged in the study of diabetes, nutrition, and metabolics. Indiana University School of Medicine will locate the Center for Regenerative Medicine's molecular therapeutics program in 12,000 sf of the facility, which will also house the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.
The Pirbright Institute will begin construction in early 2019 on the £50 million Brooksby Building in the United Kingdom. Designed to promote interaction and collaboration between investigators, the 51,000-sf facility will feature sophisticated biocontainment laboratories for the detection, diagnosis, and study of zoonotic diseases and livestock pathogens, as well as providing small animal vivarium space for in vivo research programs. The general contractor for the project is Kier and occupancy is expected by 2021.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is planning to build a $5 million, 12,490-sf gnotobiotic mouse vivarium adjacent to its existing rodent facility on the East Campus. Providing labs, procedure rooms, a conference room, a staff locker room, and animal holding space, the germ-free facility is being created by the Nebraska Food for Health Center to support research on the human microbiome. Construction will begin in 2019 with completion expected in summer of 2020.
Mustang Bio completed construction of its 27,000-sf cell therapy manufacturing center in November of 2018. Located in the UMass Medicine Science Park in Worcester, the facility supports the clinical development and commercialization of Mustang's CAR-T and gene therapy product candidates. Accommodating proprietary cell therapy research, the project involved the renovation of labs and offices, as well as the conversion of existing labs to create three cGMP ISO7 clinical production areas.
Children's National Health System broke ground in late November of 2018 on the Research and Innovation Campus in Washington. The project includes the renovation of four existing buildings located on 12 acres on the former Walter Reed Medical Center Campus. A 333,000-sf research and innovation facility will provide 158,000 sf of laboratory space for the study of pediatric genomics and precision medicine. The project will include a business incubator and 175,000 of shell space to accommodate future growth. Completion is expected in 2020.
The Quadram Institute began the phased occupation of its £75 million translational research facility in fall of 2018. Located in the Norwich Research Park in the United Kingdom, the 150,000-sf complex was created by Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, the University of East Anglia, Quadram Institute Bioscience, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia completed construction of the $75 million Clinical Vector Core in November of 2018. Located on the basement level of the Colket Translational Research Building, the project provides laboratories, offices, four production suites, and cleanrooms for the manufacture of gene therapy agents for clinical trials. The 15,000-sf facility features robust environmental controls and was built at a cost of $44 million. The Clinical Vector Core is part of the Raymond G.
The nation’s academic biomedical research facilities are largely unprepared for natural and man-made disasters that could damage buildings, equipment, IT systems, and materials, and ultimately jeopardize research and scientific careers. A recently released study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine calls for institutions and scientists to focus on risk assessment and resilience planning to secure their capital and research investments. In order to do that successfully, institutions need to expand their emergency response and recovery plans and think beyond current building codes, which focus on the life safety needs of the occupants but have yet to account for the significant risks posed to their research programs.
TRIUMF, Canada's national particle accelerator laboratory, is planning to build the 269,000-sf Institute for Advanced Medical Isotopes (IAMI) in Vancouver. The project will support interdisciplinary radioisotope and radiopharmaceutical research by bringing together TRIUMF faculty and students with academic, government, and industry partners. Supporting the creation of next-generation cancer therapies and imaging technologies, the nuclear medicine facility will house a TR-24 medical cyclotron, research labs, control rooms, and offices.
