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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dennis Kirkpatrick noticed a fundamental shift in the US life sciences sector.
Kirkpatrick, co-leader of Redwood City, Calif.-based DPR’s core life sciences market segment, saw an industry that once had centers around the world return to the U.S. as big pharmaceutical companies sought to provide vaccines and medicines in the population. .
Today, the life sciences segment accounts for 20% of DPR’s revenue, Kirkpatrick told Construction Dive, and he doesn’t see demand slowing anytime soon.
Here, Kirkpatrick talks with Construction Dive about how the life sciences market has changed, how builders erect these projects, and how technology has played a role in speeding up schedules.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: What do you like most about the pharmaceutical construction market?
DENNIS KIRKPATRICK: Ten years ago, many of these manufacturing facilities were built overseas in manufacturing hubs, places like Puerto Rico in the past, Ireland, Europe, Singapore, India, China.
Dennis Kirkpatrick
Permission granted by DPR Construction
After the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen an influx of manufacturing projects, with these big pharmaceutical companies really investing in the United States. But this is not just American big pharma, foreign companies are also coming in to meet the demand of the patient population.
How has the environment of the building changed since then?
What has really influenced things, like the schedule and what can be achieved, was the pandemic. We, and our colleagues, participated in the construction of some of these facilities that produced the vaccines against COVID-19.
They were built on timelines that no one could have believed possible in the past, and that mindset has stayed with us. Installations used to take about five years. Now it takes three, two years. Therefore, there are significant reductions in this general schedule.
What technologies are you using to meet these truncated timelines?
There is a lot of technology. BIM is the big word that has always existed in VDC. Historically, it has been used much more on the design side.
It’s become, how do we get as builders more into the design process to influence the design, the model, the sequencing of how we’re going to build it, and then bring those technologies and software into the field where we’re building this, to make really track and manage things?
Now we can track and manage truly predictable outcomes like productivity, earned values. Where we really are, day-to-day, live, compared to where we were before.
Where do you see demand for life sciences going from here?
The large number of Food and Drug Administration applications for drugs, for clinical trials, is only increasing.
Artificial intelligence and leveraging algorithms that can quickly analyze large data sets really boost the ability of these companies to quickly focus their research to get to the end goal of providing that product to the patient.
The world population is not decreasing, is it?
There’s always a need for solutions for patients, whether it’s products for large patient populations or new therapies, we really don’t see that slowing down anytime soon.
