Ask the Expert: Exploring Life Sciences Construction with Jennie Taveras
In our Ask the Expert series, STOBG Vice President & Life Sciences Sector Leader, Jennie Taveras, discusses the intricacies of life sciences construction. Join Jennie to learn what we mean when we say ‘life sciences,’ how builders are keeping up with the rapid advancement of medical and research technology, and what strategies are helping us deliver projects faster and safer than ever before.
HOST
Jennie Taveras
Vice President & Life Sciences Sector LeaderView Bio
Ask The Expert:
Exploring Life Sciences Construction with Jennie Taveras
Hello, and welcome to Ask the Expert, a series on Building Conversations podcasts where STO Building Group (STOBG) experts answer questions from our listeners. I’m your host, Jennie Taveras, Vice President and Life Sciences Sector Leader at STO Building Group (STOBG). And today we’re going to be talking about life science construction. So, let’s start with the basics.
First question, what is life sciences? And why is it such a critical and fast-growing sector in the construction industry? Great question. So, by definition, life sciences is a study of living organisms. Since the existence of mankind, we’ve been studying the existence of diseases that we’ve been exploring ways to cure, to prevent, to diagnose illness and sickness. And in the modern day life sciences, what it is really with the advancing of the technology, with the ability to be able to diagnose these diseases better and more effectively, and to answer truly the needs of the patients, and we’re able to see the tremendous growth in this sector, because we’re living amongst the modern-day technology, and we’re able to leverage the technical capabilities we have in place to cure, to prevent, to diagnose.
With the growth of the advanced technology, the platform, which enabled us to better understand the living organisms as a result, we’re able to advance in the development of the medicine space, and how that ties to the construction. With that, we’re continued to require space and facilities that meet the regulatory requirements, to be able to continue with both manufacturing in research and in development of these advancements to medicine. That being the case, we are certainly seeing the continued growth in the construction industry when it comes to life sciences.
Second question, how do the unique requirements of laboratories, research spaces, and manufacturing facilities shape the design and construction of life sciences buildings? The majority of that really stems from the regulatory requirements because of the safety, the efficacy of the medicine that is approved to be consumed by the population. Those strict regulatory requirements really fundamentally shape how the design and construction of these life sciences building look, although it also could change and adapt slightly based on the types of the medicine and the modality. So, there’s a variety of differences in the molecules, in the types of medicine that drives the facility design.
Typically, these lab manufacturing facilities follow a very strict GMP requirement, which is known as good manufacturing practices. And within there, there are clear guidelines around how these facilities should be designed, the cleanliness, what type of particulates and ISO certification these buildings need to meet to be compliant to the types of medicines that it is looking to manufacture or research in the space.
Third question, what strategies can be implemented during planning and pre-construction to accelerate timelines while maintaining high construction quality and regulatory compliance? I must say this is one of my favorite questions. I like this topic because there is unlimited possibilities within the project. It’s a very project specific. What opportunities you can seek in accelerating project timeline while maintaining and checking all the boxes in terms of quality and regulatory requirements. Because of that, we really can get creative. We can really put our leadership into the space in terms of while we do the planning and especially during the pre-construction phase, try to identify opportunities for value engineering, opportunities to come up with creative solutions in varieties of areas of focus, such as sustainability, such as lean construction, such as cost control. All of that, the upfront planning is so critical to have those steps take place in order to ensure the success of the project and also to meet all of these regulatory requirements.
From being in the industry for so many years, we started seeing more and more of early engagement across board with different functions that’s involved in ensuring the whole life cycle of the medicine development. As early as engaging with regulatory compliance, the FDA, to understand what the requirements are and to continue to stay engaged with them throughout the development process. As the development of the project progresses and we enter into the phase where having a research development lab or a production space or a pilot plan is needed, and this is where you start engaging your design firm, your construction firm, and even within that timeframe, having the early engagement to identify the best solutions and to be able to analyze the risks of these products in terms of build, in terms of design, and having that early engagement to come up with the best solution upfront that could really accelerate the project effectively and has a good handle on the cost of the project so that you don’t run over budget. Then also, you know, achieving ultimately what everyone wants is speed to market. So, one of the points to mix of these complex projects is also procurement. And with these life sciences projects, it involves very high-tech types of whether it’s manufacturing or process equipment or benchtop or just facility equipment. All of them are relatively unique and specialized in this sector. Having proper and very robust procurement strategy up front, especially for a very complex project, it is very much critical to the success of the entire project timeline.
Question four, how do modular construction and prefabrication techniques support faster delivery of life sciences facilities? Do these tactics come with any limitations? Modular construction and prefabrication is becoming a trend in delivering life sciences projects, mainly because the ability to off-site these working hours, there’s a number of benefits. One, a benefit of minimize risk of safety incidents, because these hours are taken off-site and the productions are done somewhere else. Even a whole clean room space can be done off-site. So that’s one major benefit.
The other one is while these various skits can be fabricated off-site, and then once they come to site, there are a lot of tasks that can occur in parallel. So, in ways that these are benefits in accelerating project timelines, and it allows various skits can be brought to site and the ability to flexibly schedule the installation allows it to essentially accelerate, there’s opportunity to accelerate a project as a result. The limitations typically are around ability to optimize a design, given that it’s being prefabbed, structured and constructed off-site, and when it’s brought to site, there’s an ability to integrate with the remaining infrastructure. So, these are potential limitations in that space. And then also, you know, what can be fabricated and what are some of the vendors that’s out there and who’s capable of manufacturing these off-site fabrication components as well.
Question number five, looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the life sciences construction industry and what innovative solutions could help address them? We’re really seeing that the biggest struggle in this construction space is going to be skilled labor, or uniquely skilled labor, I should say, for this sector is becoming more and more constrained given these projects that are pulling these resources into these mega projects in the space such as North Carolina, Midwest, continuous growth on the West Coast as well. Certainly, we can look into training programs that are dedicated to educating the various workforces to supplement this lag of labor force.
In addition to that, certainly the supply chain is another constraint that organizations are planning for and need to put together a very robust strategy to weather through the supply chain constraint. And one of the big items that I know many organizations are putting emphasis on is really cost management, and these projects are becoming more and more costly to build a full production manufacturing facilities or a multi-site, and then these costs are well exceeding the billion-dollar range and having better control of the cost and identifying opportunity to really reduce the cost or manage the cost simply through the lifecycle of the project is one of the key areas that many organizations are focusing on.
Last question for this episode. How do you see the life sciences sector evolving and what trends or innovations are shaping the future of life sciences construction? Great question. I think the AI is going to play a big role in the space. And I do know there are many startups are in the biotech space already leveraging AI to develop molecules so that we have a product designed before we even hit the wet lab. So those are definitely very exciting space for the outlook of the future of this sector. And in terms of how it’s going to impact life sciences construction, with continued development in the medicine space, and we’ll see more construction in creating space and facilities that are flexible, that are multi -modalities, so that the big pharma and biotech is able to easily and quickly repurpose their facilities to manufacture or research products of the future. That’s all for today. Thank you for the great questions and keep them coming. Thanks for listening.