4 keys to accelerating blockbuster drug production

Given lengthy regulatory approval timelines, exact product launch dates can be unpredictable. From a facilities perspective, the solution is readiness. For example, even idled production facilities require ongoing maintenance to remain ready for use on short notice. Understanding the current state of your production facilities and making essential improvements in advance will instill confidence in the infrastructure needed to bring a product to market.

Strategic enterprise real estate planning requires cross-pollination between different facility uses and organizational teams. This integrated approach prevents costly missteps and maximizes asset utilization. For instance, one client's facility organization was making plans to revitalize a facility within a year of lease expiration. As the provider to both the facilities and real estate sectors of the organization, we were able to identify this timing conflict and help the client determine how to resolve it, ultimately saving significant investment in a soon-to-be-vacated space.

When a medical device manufacturer in Puerto Rico needed to expand production for several new products, capacity was a significant issue because its active facility was being used to manufacture one of its primary products. A second, legacy facility was available—but was slated to be permanently closed. In a complex strategy, the company turned to its real estate and facilities team to revive the aging facility. Then, it transferred production of the primary product to the older facility and added capacity to the newer facility to handle the new products.

Another aspect of readiness is ensuring the availability of support services for facilities that would soon face high production volumes. In regulated GXP facilities, even seemingly mundane janitorial and pest control services are critical for maintaining compliance, and higher service levels may be needed.

Beyond the production facilities, your facilities team also should anticipate storage and distribution needs. When a COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer was undertaking its ambitious and fast-paced production program, the real estate and facilities team needed to not only ensure that facilities were ready to run smoothly, but also repurpose logistics and aviation space to accommodate the freezer capacity required for the vaccine.

Adding further challenges, the company lacked sales and marketing offices in the multiple foreign markets with an urgent need for the COVID-19 vaccine. The real estate and facilities team was tasked with quickly securing well-located sites for business operations in multiple countries.

If accelerated speed to market is the goal, working with a life sciences real estate service provider can shave weeks off a construction schedule—while keeping the project within budget. For instance, when a mid-tier biotechnology company faced an urgent opportunity to help address a public health crisis, it partnered with a life sciences project manager to bring a new 210,000-square-foot laboratory and GXP production facility online in an accelerated timeline.

The company enlisted a project manager early on to serve as owner’s representative and provide guidance on selection and installation of such critical systems as vibration sensors, infrared scans for electrical equipment, water injection, HEPA filtration and more, as well as overall construction management.

The project management team included FM experts to help establish standard operating procedures and set up a computerized maintenance management system and other foundational elements of FM operations. The FM team helped ensure the proper installation, calibration and certification of critical systems, and established streamlined, cost-efficient and value-added FM practices across the enterprise.