The following viewpoint is written by Raj Vora, Principal Life Sciences Market Leader at DPR Construction
The life sciences sector is poised for growth. In fact, PwC reports that deal volume in the industry has increased by 20% in the past 12 months, which is formidable given the lingering regulatory uncertainty ahead of the US presidential election. Combined with new technology and the demand for new drugs and therapeutics, the project portfolio is robust.
Pharmaceutical leaders are looking for ways to fuel this progress with investments they can sustain over the long term. In turn, contractors who build facilities for these companies must ensure that their projects are not only foolproof, but also future-proof.
Here are four key phrases project owners should keep in mind, which from our experience can help you build tomorrow’s pharmaceutical facility, today.
adaptability
This means that the installation is agile enough to support current functionality, while being able to evolve for any future needs. A critical component to this is making sure you’re engaging your stakeholders early in the planning process. Together, contractors, designers, owners and key business partners can sit down and collaborate on a vision of what to expect in the future. This could mean creating additional space for virtual experiments, labs to accommodate semi- or fully automated processes, or changes in the way companies store and distribute finished products.
You should also carefully consider which construction methods to use. For example, prefabrication of certain building elements may support initial speed to market, but other elements will have more flexibility in the future using a stick-built approach. A collaborative approach early on can determine which construction methods will deliver initial and ongoing value. In addition, we can anticipate changes in local and federal energy codes. The key here is to go into the project aligned with the end users on how to integrate adaptive design features that meet current market demand while equipping them for future changes.
sustainability
A recent Deloitte survey found that nearly half of pharmaceutical executives said they are actively making efforts to build smarter facilities. Especially as companies strive to align their real estate portfolios with their climate commitments, it’s clear that reductions in energy and water consumption are no longer nice-to-haves, but imperatives in the pharmaceutical industry. For example, we recently completed work on United Therapeutics’ phase five cGMP warehouse. The project’s geothermal systems included 40 individual boreholes, each dug 500 feet deep into the Earth, requiring 40,000 feet of vertical boreholes with 3,000 feet of lateral piping. We had to make sure the field and geothermal probe system were sized appropriately to address the annual heating and cooling changes.
Part of the design included a rooftop photovoltaic array of 1,200 panels with 560 KW of peak power and 767 MWh of expected annual output. This array is connected to the project’s microgrid and is rechargeable when the building’s electrical system is disconnected from the grid. Because the building does not include a backup generator, it avoids the need for fossil fuels. Having this renewable energy source allows the facility to function perfectly for years, even if it runs out of fuel.
Resilience
The project also implemented backup systems for Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries. We coordinated with stakeholders early in the process to consider connecting batteries to solar PV systems via a microgrid. In this way, when the array produces a surplus of energy, the batteries are recharged.
Part of the building’s requirement was that the system could operate for 24 hours after an outage, while the cold room would have to operate for an additional 24 hours. With this in mind, the design and construction project team determined that two batteries were needed, providing 6.2 MWh of capacity. This was an essential component because it helped United Therapeutics avoid power outages that affect drug storage and accessibility, which in turn helped them meet patient demand for their product. It is crucial to have this type of input from stakeholders as early as possible before construction begins to ensure the resilience of the facility over time.
reminder
Managing a construction project effectively means not having to reinvent the wheel. Customers should consider their own specific parameters and requirements and encourage the use of previous lessons learned so that they can be implemented in your next projects. By remembering what was successful in previous United Therapeutics projects, we were able to incorporate the most efficient and effective business operation for the new warehouse.
Another example is how we built the sprinkler system. The company’s insurance requirements required a design that mitigated sprinkler interference that could cause product loss. To meet this, we moved away from using a fully automated sprinkler system. Bringing these lessons learned to the fore allowed the team to proactively make the installation as efficient as possible for their operators. They avoided the potential for unnecessary product loss and are now able to more effectively fulfill their mission of delivering reliable, continuous product to their patients.
We know that the pharmaceutical industry will continue to evolve to keep up with consumer demand. Construction teams need to be well-informed about any new requirements for flexible installations, including changes to sustainability legislation and FDA implications. By leveraging past experience and adaptable designs, you can ensure that pharmaceutical company real estate investments can endure and thrive well into the future.
vora is a core life sciences market leader at DPR Construction who has delivered complex engineering and construction projects at a high level of quality while maintaining budget and schedule requirements. He is a licensed professional engineer in Maryland and holds a master’s degree in architectural engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
