Biomedical

Veterinary pharmaceutical firm HIPRA is planning to begin construction in mid-2017 on its North American headquarters in Mantua Township, N.J. Located on 25 acres in the South Jersey Technology Park at Rowan University, the 375,000-sf facility will house research and development labs for the creation of animal health vaccines. The $100 million project will be developed in several phases and will include manufacturing, distribution, and warehouse space. HIPRA is based in Girona, Spain. 

The University of Sussex is planning to build the £60 million Life Sciences Building in Brighton in the United Kingdom. Designed by Hawkins Brown Architects, the 183,000-sf project includes the renovation of an existing genome research building and construction of a five-story addition housing technology-rich classrooms and collaborative laboratories for research and teaching. The sustainably designed facility will feature natural materials, green roofs, and internal courtyard atriums.

The Medical College of Georgia is engaged in a $62.5 million expansion of its cancer research facilities in Augusta. Designed to promote interaction between clinicians and researchers, the project includes the creation of a three-story facility housing offices and collaboration space connecting the M.

The Research Institute of Molecular Pathology opened its new facility in the Vienna Biocenter in March of 2017. Designed by ATP Architects and Engineers, the highly flexible building will accommodate 200 investigators engaged in biomedical research and development. Founded in 1985, the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology is funded by research grants and the sponsorship of founding company Boehringer Ingelheim, who invested $57 million in the project. The duration of construction was two and a half years.

Sanofi and Lonza initiated a joint venture in March of 2017 to create a $285 million biologics manufacturing center in Visp, Switzerland. The strategic partnership leverages Lonza’s expertise in designing, constructing, and managing large-scale mammalian cell culture facilities with Sanofi’s strength in the discovery and launch of biologics-based treatments. Construction is expected to begin in 2017 on the initial phase of the project, with full operations commencing by 2020.

The University of Arizona opened the $136 million Biosciences Partnership Building in February of 2017. Located on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, the 10-story, 245,000-sf facility houses the Center for Applied NanoBioscience and Medicine, the Institute of Molecular Medicine, the Pediatric Infectious Disease Research Lab, the Research and Translational Flow Cytometry and Immunology Core Lab, and an advanced cancer research lab.

Mayo Clinic’s Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (DLMP) has relocated and consolidated three laboratories—Endocrine, Toxicology and Drug Monitoring, and the Proteomics Core Mass Spectrometry Development Lab (CMSL)—into a singular core mass spectrometry laboratory. The two-story, 65,000-gsf addition to the Superior Drive Support Center (SDSC) is 10 to 15 minutes from Mayo Clinic’s downtown Rochester, Minn., campus.

Texas Tech University broke ground on the $77 million Experimental Sciences Building II in February of 2017 in Lubbock, Texas. Designed by TreanorHL to support interdisciplinary research, the collaborative 117,000-gsf facility will provide four general wet labs, three core instrumentation suites, two synthetic labs, a vivarium, a BSL-2 lab, conference rooms, and offices for researchers and principal investigators. The construction manager for the LEED-certified facility, which comprises four stories and a basement, is Project Control.

The Sheikha Salwa Sabah Al Ahmad Stem Cell and Umbilical Cord Center is being constructed in the Sabah Medical District in Kuwait. Designed by SSH, the $26 million facility will provide research and testing laboratories, an outpatient center for adult stem cell collection, a cryolab, and storage banks for stem and cord blood cells. The three-story, 84,000-sf project will also include medical libraries, a lecture hall, and a utility building. Completion is expected in September of 2017.

The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) announced the annual winners for the Facility of the Year Award (FOYA) program in February of 2017. The category winners were:

Central Michigan University opened the $95 million Biosciences Building in January of 2017 in Mount Pleasant. Designed by Stantec to promote interaction and collaboration, the four-story, 169,000-sf facility provides teaching labs, research labs, lecture halls, an active learning classroom, an auditorium, and faculty offices. The building also includes a BSL-3 suite, an herbarium, an imaging center, and an aquatic research vivarium. Clark Construction began work on the project in September of 2014.

Zymeworks opened a 10,000-sf biopharmaceutical laboratory in January of 2017 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The facility will provide a centralized location for the company’s discovery research operations, including antibody generation, medicinal chemistry, bioconjugation, and the development of multifunctional proteins. Zymeworks is a producer of therapeutic agents for clinical-stage research on the treatment of cancer.

The State University of New York at Binghamton is constructing the $60 million School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in New York. Designed by The S/L/A/M Collaborative, the 105,000-sf building will provide sophisticated teaching and research labs, lecture halls, faculty offices, a library, and student activity space. Accommodating 240 students and approximately 36 faculty members, the four-story facility will feature interactive classrooms that can accommodate lectures as well as team-based learning activities.

The Jackson Laboratory is building the $21 million Center for Biometric Analysis in Bar Harbor, Maine. Designed by Harriman Associates, the 21,000-sf facility will support the precision analysis of disease markers in research mice through advanced imaging and analytical technologies. PC Construction broke ground on the project in June of 2016 and completion is expected by January of 2018. The construction cost of the facility is $14 million. 

Penn Medicine and Novartis have joined forces to create the new Center for Advanced Cellular Therapies (CACT), located atop the Henry Jordan Medical Education Center at the Perelman School of Medicine. Dedicated to finding more effective treatments for cancer using personalized medicine, this first-of-its-kind facility forms the epicenter for research using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology, which enables a patient’s T cells to be removed, reprogrammed, and re-infused into the patient, where they can “hunt” and destroy cancer cells.