Thermo Fisher Scientific is planning to build a $180 million viral vector development and manufacturing facility in Plainville, Mass. Featuring flexible and scalable production suites, the 290,000-sf structure will leverage advanced digital technologies to enhance operational efficiencies.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is renovating and expanding its engineering complex to provide leading-edge environments for learning and discovery. The $75 million project will replace an existing 25,300-sf structure with an 87,000-sf research facility connecting the Scott Engineering Center to Nebraska Hall. The four-story, 177,000-gsf Scott Engineering Center will be renovated to provide new undergraduate teaching labs, research labs, classrooms, and departmental offices.
Biogen completed construction in late spring of 2020 on a leading-edge biologics manufacturing center in Luterbach, Switzerland. Representing an investment of $1.5 billion, the modular and flexible facility leverages Biogen’s latest strategies for fed-batch cell culture technologies and protein purification processes. Offering two cell manufacturing lines, the 260,000-sf complex features two production buildings, each housing four 15,000-liter bioreactors. The campus also provides laboratories, offices, maintenance buildings, and a warehouse.
Colorado State University broke ground in May of 2020 on the $60 million Vida building in Denver. The 114,000-sf facility represents the first phase of construction at CSU's $200 million Spur campus at the National Western Center. The 250-acre site is being redeveloped to create a vibrant hub for the exploration of global issues including human and animal health, water quality, and sustainable food systems.
Global pharmaceutical firm XBiotech is planning to construct a 30,000-sf R&D laboratory in Austin, Texas. The facility will accelerate the creation of innovative treatments for infectious diseases. The project will be sited on the company's 48-acre headquarters campus, which includes a 33,000-sf research and manufacturing center that is also undergoing expansion to accommodate greater output, a larger workforce, increased inventory, and around-the-clock production operations.
The University of Maine began construction in May of 2020 on the $78 million Ferland Engineering Education and Design Center in Orono. Designed by Ellenzweig and WBRC Architects/Engineers to promote experiential learning, the 108,000-sf facility will feature hands-on teaching labs for programs in mechanical and biomedical engineering. The three-story multidisciplinary building will also offer instructional spaces, capstone project rooms, a collaboration commons, conference rooms, informal meeting areas, and offices for faculty and staff.
Hixson is offering a free webinar at 2:00 PM EDT on May 14, 2020. "Optimizing Your Lab Facility: Removing Roadblocks to Success" will enable facilities planning and management professionals to learn how to identify barriers to R&D lab performance; discover design and engineering solutions that can reduce or eliminate lab constraints; and develop a winning business case to make strategic capital investments for facility improvements.
Many existing lab spaces are filled with roadblocks that cause them to be less than ideal:
E4H Architecture presented a webinar on modular facilities for accelerating vaccine development on May 8, 2020. Now available as an on-demand recording, the exciting session is led by Jeff Schantz, Director of Health Sciences and Technology at E4H. Jeff reviews planning strategies for adapting multi-therapeutic cGMP/BSL-3 cleanroom modules for SARS-CoV-2 response and cell therapy development. Presentation topics include regulatory guidelines, HVAC requirements, design and flow considerations, and decontamination strategies.
Exicure, a clinical-stage biotechnology firm, has leased 30,000 sf in The Labs in Chicago. Accommodating headquarters and research operations relocated from Skokie, Ill., the facility will accelerate the creation of innovative therapies for genetic disorders, inflammatory diseases, and cancer.
Tecniplast is offering a webinar on the use of the DVC® System to optimize animal modelling in mouse vivaria. “Improving Animal Modelling with 24/7 Home Cage Monitoring in Bio-exclusion/Biocontainment Mouse Housing Systems” will detail how the DVC® technology applied to the ISO caging system can deliver improved data replicability, animal welfare, and research results.
The University of Mississippi is planning to begin construction in late 2020 on the $160 million Jim and Thomas Duff Center for Science and Technology Innovation in Oxford. The 204,000-sf facility will provide leading-edge laboratories, interactive classrooms, collaboration areas, lounges, breakout spaces, conference and meeting rooms, and offices for faculty and staff. Anchoring the new Science District, the building is expected to be one of the nation’s leading student-centered learning environments for STEM programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (VIMC) is being constructed on an accelerated schedule in Oxford in the United Kingdom. Ground was broken on the £66 million project in April of 2020 and occupancy is expected in 2021, a year earlier than previously planned.
The University of Delaware began construction in April of 2020 on the $38 million FinTech building in Newark. Located on the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus, the 100,000-sf facility will accelerate the development of innovative financial technologies. The six-story project, which is being created in partnership with Discover Bank and the Delaware Technology Park, will enable the university to lease space for its research programs in financial analytics, cybersecurity, data analysis, and human-machine learning.
The Human Technopole Foundation is planning to construct a 592,000-sf biomedical research campus in the MIND Milano Innovation District in Italy. Designed by Piuarch, the Human Technopole Campus will include a ten-story, 377,000-sf facility offering 177,000 sf of dedicated laboratory space. Comprising two flexible volumes connected by a full-height atrium, the $102 million building will include advanced instrumentation suites, 800 investigator workstations, meeting rooms, event venues, and space for several research centers.
The U.S. Department of Energy is planning to begin construction in 2021 on the $75 million Grid Storage Launchpad at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. Designed as a resource hub for the development of next-generation grid energy storage technologies, the R&D facility will provide labs for basic materials synthesis and processing, in-operando characterization, small-scale cell fabrication, kilowatt-scale testing and validation, advanced prototyping, visualization, and analysis.
