Pharmaceutical

Cambrex Corporation, a leading manufacturer of small molecule innovator and generic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), completed an expansion of its pilot plant in High Point in May of 2018. The project included the installation and commissioning of a fourth reactor suite, increasing the site's capacity by approximately 30 percent. The 400-sf suite houses two 2,000-liter glass-lined reactors and a Hastelloy C22 filter dryer, allowing the manufacture of batch sizes between 10 and 100 kilograms under cGMP conditions.

AstraZeneca opened its 163,000-sf South San Francisco facility in May of 2018. Located in the Cove at Oyster Point, the project houses a total of 400 employees from four organizations: Acerta Pharma, MedImmune, Pearl Therapeutics, and Technology Innovation & Delivery Excellence (TIDE). Designed by HOK to promote collaboration and innovation, the open lab and office environments incorporate AstraZeneca’s iWork philosophy, an activity-based approach that embraces industry best practices.

The University of Houston opened the $145 million Health 2 facility in May of 2018. Designed by Shepley Bulfinch, the nine-story, 300,000-sf project is the university's second health and biosciences building and houses the College of Pharmacy, the Department of Health and Human Performance, the Student Health Services Clinic, and the Primary Care and Behavior Clinics.

Global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb opened a 62,000-sf biologics discovery center on its Redwood City campus in April of 2018. Designed by Stantec to support the development of new cancer therapies, the facility provides research labs and 115 perimeter workstations in an open office environment. The building is illuminated by abundant natural light and offers huddle rooms and conference rooms adjoining the main circulation area to enhance collaboration.

Zoetis broke ground in April of 2018 on a 463,000-sf animal vaccine center in Suzhou, China. Combining research and development operations with integrated manufacturing and supply, the facility will produce vaccines for swine, cattle, fish, and companion animals. Offering sophisticated innovation suites and certified GMP laboratories, the project will support research on disease threats prevalent in China with a primary focus on aquaculture.

Lonza opened a 300,000-sf cell and gene therapy manufacturing center in April of 2018 in Pearland, Texas. The facility features eight independent cGMP modular cleanrooms with single-use bioreactors and a fully segregated fill/finish suite. Supporting the development of new therapies from initial concept through the pre-clinical, clinical, and commercialization phases, the integrated building includes research labs, offices, manufacturing and production spaces, and support.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is expanding its campus in Barnard Castle in the United Kingdom with the construction of a $130 million liquid biopharmaceuticals production plant. The 124,000-sf aseptic sterile facility will make injectable liquids for the treatment of respiratory and autoimmune diseases and is slated for completion by November of 2019. Building Information Modeling (BIM) and offsite construction methodologies are being implemented in the delivery of the project, which includes the specification that the building can be replicated anywhere in the world.

Aldevron is building a $30 million plasmid manufacturing facility in Fargo, N.D. The 70,000-sf project will feature 17,000 sf of modular cGMP cleanrooms, as well as ISO 8 processing suites with ISO 7 suites for cell banking and fermentation. The facility will feature airlocked, unidirectional personnel flow within the cGMP production area, single-pass air for all product dispensing and cell banking suites, and integrated facility and environmental monitoring systems.

The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering announced the category winners for 2018 ISPE Facility of the Year Awards in March of 2018. The awards include: 

Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology opened the Project Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (BEAM) in March of 2018 in Hamilton, Ontario. Located in the McMaster Innovation Park, the $33 million project involved the renovation and fit-out of an existing warehouse to create a 20,000-sf innovation center offering research, office, and manufacturing space. An additional 20,000 sf on the second floor will house laboratories and offices in the future.

Sanofi Genzyme is expanding its presence in the Framingham Technology Park in Massachusetts where its $80 million, 72,000-sf biomanufacturing facility is currently under construction. A two-story, 14,821-sf addition to the project will enable Sanofi Genzyme to increase its production capacity for advanced therapeutics.

Athenex is planning to break ground by April of 2018 on a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Dunkirk, N.Y. Supporting the production of advanced cancer therapies, the 320,000-sf project will include a 281,000-sf building providing manufacturing, research, office, and warehouse space. Completion is expected in 2019. A second phase of development comprising a 39,000-sf expansion is slated for occupancy in 2020. The general contractor for the project is M+W Group and the estimated cost of construction is $210 million.
 

The Francis Crick Institute (informally known as “the Crick”) is one of the world’s largest dedicated biomedical research centers. Its formal agenda is “to discover the basic biology underlying human health, improving the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of disease, and generating economic opportunities for the UK.” Achieving this agenda has required some unusual architectural strategies, centered on the notion of “discovery without boundaries”—boundaries between scientific disciplines, institutions, laboratories, and individual researchers—which lies at the heart of the Crick’s culture.

Vetter Pharma began construction in December of 2017 on its United States headquarters in Des Plains, Ill. The $350 million project includes renovation of an existing five-story office building and construction of four new facilities providing over 700,000 sf of pharmaceutical manufacturing and warehousing space. Commercial production is expected to begin at the site by 2022. A second phase of construction comprising two additional buildings will reach completion by 2025. Vetter Pharma is based in Ravensburg, Germany. 

Boehringer Ingelheim began construction in December of 2017 on a 50,000-sf expansion of its 350,000-sf animal vaccine production facility in Athens, Ga. The completed 400,000-sf project will begin commercial operations in mid-2019. Boehringer Ingelheim will also construct a 13,000-sf addition for the manufacture of livestock animal vaccines on its 700,000-sf campus in St. Joseph, Mo.