Industry News

UC San Francisco is planning to build a $241-million Cardiovascular Research Institute facility at is Mission Bay, San Francisco campus. Groundbreaking is slated for 2008 with completion expected in 2011.

Merck is engaged in a $57-million expansion of its Stonewall plant in Elkton, Va. to accommodate demand for its Gardasil vaccine. The project is the second phase of expansion at the facility and includes construction of a new building and installation of purification technologies for pharmaceutical production. The first $40-million phase included a vaccine fermentation unit and was completed in 2006.

The University of Rhode Island (URI) broke ground in March 2007 on the Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences in Kingston, R.I. Funded in part by a $1 million donation from Amgen, the facility will serve as a major center of education and research that will drive economic development in the state's growing biotechnology industry. The architect for the center is Payette Associates of Boston, and Providence-based Gilbane Building Co. will serve as the construction manager.

Stanford University Medical Center has awarded Sodexho’s Health Care Services Division a five year facilities management contract for plant operations and maintenance. Including 4.5 million sf of space at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford University School of Medicine, and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, the multi-million dollar contract will also include facility infrastructure renewal projects.

Biotechnology firm FibroGen will relocate its headquarters and R&D operations to a 239,000-sf R&D facility in San Francisco’s Mission Bay in the fourth quarter of 2008. The facility is currently under construction and was designed by Dowler-Gruman Architects with Hathaway Dinwiddie as project contractor. FibroGen also plans to expand into a second 211,000-sf facility at the site that is being constructed to core and shell status. The site developers are Shorenstein Properties and SKS Investments.