Medical Devices

Olympus Surgical Technologies of America opened its expanded manufacturing campus in March of 2018 in Bartlett, Tenn. Designed by Renaissance Group Architects, the $12 million project included construction of a two-story, 110,000-sf facility to support the production, distribution, and servicing of medical devices. Illuminated by abundant natural light, the addition features repair suites with electrostatic epoxy floors and a 32-foot-tall warehouse to maximize the footprint of the building.

Chicago’s newly opened Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is the world’s first translational research hospital where scientists, engineers, technologists, and clinicians work collaboratively with thousands of patients going through intensive post-traumatic and disease-related functional rehabilitation. This unique integrated model dramatically shortens the amount of time between research innovations and practical clinical applications.

The University of Delaware’s College of Health Sciences encourages businesses and the community to play an active role in the Health Sciences campus, with its focus on translational medicine and utilization of the next generation of classrooms. Kathleen Matt, dean of the College of Heath Sciences, describes these learning spaces as “not a classroom at all. It is interacting in unique ways, in all kinds of environments, that drives the learning process, it drives the outcomes, and it drives the changes.”

Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJI) is creating the Center for Device Innovation at Texas Medical Center (CDI @ TMC) in Houston. Designed by Gensler, the facility will feature a 26,000-sf makerspace for the development of advanced medical devices, from initial concept through to commercialization. The center is JJI’s second collaborative R&D project at the Texas Medical Center and is slated for occupancy in July of 2017.

Today’s scientific researchers are improving their productivity, research outcomes, and technological advances by using the knowledge of many disciplines. This emerging field of “convergence science” goes beyond traditional collaboration to the much larger intellectual intersection of engineering, physical sciences, life sciences, and other disciplines, plus big data. In this model, research includes funding from private sources or foundations that demand marketable results quickly.

A hands-on, interactive, and problem-oriented approach to learning is taking campus planning and design by storm, focused on equipping students with the skills they need to tackle near-term and future challenges globally. Increasingly, universities are recognizing students’ desire to connect their educational experience with real-world applications, and “maker spaces” provide that intersection. They also appeal to big industry and help to connect students with job opportunities, particularly in STEM fields.

A backlog of construction, renovations, and upgrades may finally come to life, thanks to the $2 billion increase in NIH funding Congress approved in December, the first increase in more than 12 years. More than 80 percent of the $32 billion NIH budget is dedicated to extramural research—research outside the NIH itself—meaning that an additional $1.6 billion in research grants will be made available this year.

The University of Washington is planning to build the Nanoengineering & Sciences Building in Seattle. Designed by ZGF, the 78,000-sf interdisciplinary facility will provide approximately 43,000 ASF of research space for the departments of bioengineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and materials sciences.

The University of Maryland is building a state-of-the-art engineering teaching and research building for the era of convergence science. It is designed to facilitate the practical integration of bioscience, medicine, and engineering to develop new biomedical devices and other health-related advancements. When it opens in 2017, the six-floor, 184,000-sf A. James Clark Hall will serve as a national center for innovation that combines engineering with biology, medicine, and information technology in support of private and government partnerships.

llumina is partnering with BioMed Realty Trust to develop a 155,000-sf research center in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Supporting the creation of advanced biopharmaceutical and bioinformatics technologies, the leased facility is designed for ease of expansion, enabling the project to grow by 70,000 sf to provide a total of 225,000 sf of collaborative lab and office space. Illumina is headquartered in San Diego.

West Pharmaceutical Services broke ground in June of 2015 on a 95,000-sf manufacturing facility in Waterford, Ireland. Housing 150 employees, the project will act as a center of excellence for the production of West's proprietary elastomeric sheeting technologies and will support the manufacture of packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other injectable drugs. The facility is expected to be fully operational in late 2018. West Pharmaceutical Services is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania.

Minerals research firm Mintek opened a cleanroom and biocontainment laboratory in April of 2015 in Johannesburg. Supported by $2.4 million in funding from South Africa's Department of Science and Technology, the project includes an ISO 5 cleanroom and a BSL-3 suite to accommodate the development of advanced diagnostic technologies for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV. The facilities feature sophisticated controls for the regulation of temperature, pressure, moisture, and airborne particles.

The three-story, 183,000-sf “@4240” building—originally constructed in 1948 as a telephone handset factory—provides flexible tenant solutions, including customized labs for both large- and small-molecule research; dry labs for electronic, medical device, or software research; and modern office space.

The 5,700-sf Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Suite (AMIGO) represents a significant development in integrating imaging and surgery into one space. The Suite is located in a basement of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Three diagnostic and procedure rooms allow imaging before, during, and after surgery with minimal disruption to the patient and the surgical procedure. This suite provides clinicians and researchers with new opportunities to improve surgical techniques and develop new clinical methodologies.

Merit Medical Systems began construction in October of 2011 on an 118,000-sf R&D facility in Pearland, Texas. The two-story building will house 220 employees. Based in South Jordan, Utah, Merit Medical Systems is a maker of proprietary disposable medical devices used in interventional and diagnostic procedures.