Pacira Biosciences, Inc. is a leading provider of non-opioid pain management and regenerative health solutions dedicated to advancing and improving outcomes for health care practitioners and their patients. The company relocated its R&D and pilot-scale manufacturing functions to an existing building at 10410 Science Center Drive. Having designed the original shell and several renovations over the last two decades, FPBA partnered with Pacira to provide a multi-phased, full-building tenant improvement. Beginning with programming and conceptual design, FPBA coordinated with various user groups for input on desired capacity and features for each function. Spaces include a formulation lab; medical device assembly lab; ISO 7/8 cleanrooms; warehouse; office space; and a 6,000-square-foot town hall space with a break room, smart market, and two large meeting rooms that can be divided by an operable wall. A subdued color palette of grays and slate teal offer a neutral, calming work environment. Minimalist accents and modern finishes complete the aesthetic. Ultimately, the revitalized building provides a bustling R&D and manufacturing hub that will accommodate Pacira’s growth for years to come.
Sorrento Therapeutics is an antibody-centric, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of safe and effective immunotherapies for oncology and autoimmune/inflammation diseases. The company’s acquisition of several companies drove the need to expand its facilities and bring these acquisitions under one roof in a leased 75,000-square-foot building. The project included renovation of existing labs, offices and a lobby, along with new designs for labs, offices, a vivarium, a lunch room, a lunch patio and a board room. Sorrento’s scientific groups included bacteria, infectious disease, oncology/immunology, TNK, LA Cell, and chemistry, some of which were new groups within the company. Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects worked closely with these groups to establish a common lab module that would meet their specific needs but also be flexible for groups to expand and share space as they grow within two large open laboratories. This included the chemistry lab, which required segregation for safety and contamination control. FPBA assisted with capturing equipment information for legacy equipment coming from several different locations and consolidated shared equipment in centrally located support rooms to save space and money. The project was constructed in three phases on a fast-track schedule with successive occupancy dates. FPBA coordinated the approvals for this phasing with the building officials using a single set of permit drawings and obtained the permit in just four weeks to complete design and start construction ahead of schedule.
Project SHORE (Shire Operations for Regenerative Expansion) was master planned to be a new build-to-suit campus for Shire’s Regenerative Medicine Business Unit and provide increased commercial production capacity of Dermagraft, a dermal substitute approved for treatment of diabetic foot ulcers, along with future capacity for other products. The master plan includes an ultimate build out of up to 850,000 square feet on 28 acres. Phase 1 of the project comprised two buildings totaling 350,000 square feet. The Technical Operations Building includes Manufacturing, Laboratory, Warehouse, Distribution, and Central Utility space. A Commercial Operations Building was designed to house Administrative Offices, a Full-Service Cafeteria, a Fitness Center, a Training Room and Conference Rooms. A pedestrian tunnel with enhanced artwork was designed to safely connect the two parcels underneath the road. The project was developed using a High Performance Team (HPT) with the owner, project managers, contractors, sub-contractors, architects and engineers co-located in a large trailer complex on the site. This supported a highly coordinated team effort with a mission statement and core values created by the HPT Board of Directors to foster trust and guide the culture of the entire project team. This team utilized a very high level of Building Information Modeling (BIM) to improve coordination of building systems and utilize best practices for efficient project delivery. FPBA processed over 20 permits to support the fast-tracked schedule including overall entitlements, grading, steel frame, tunnel, shell and tenant improvement building permits. Although the project construction ended before completion, design documentation was fully complete and many of the High Performance Team methodologies were tested during the first phases of construction. This project will be a model for project delivery excellence in the industry.
Gilead Sciences commissioned this project to further its commitment to advancing therapeutics in the quest to improve lives. With over 23 acres in an industrial and manufacturing park in Southern California, Phase 1 is designed for 320,000 usable square feet in five buildings with generous vertical clearances to accommodate manufacturing equipment. The complete campus build-out is master planned for over 600,000 square feet. The facility includes large-scale sterile pharmaceutical manufacturing, lypohilization and final filling in ISO 5 to ISO 8 clean rooms. Tablet and vial packaging lines package and label products made at this site and at contract manufacturing sites across the nation. The lab-office building houses a full-service cafeteria and fitness center, along with QC, validation and manufacturing technical support laboratories. The building materials are of supreme quality, including GFRC panels, concrete, metal and glass. These materials create texture, relief and colors for a richer architectural look. The resulting architecture conveys a clean, modern aesthetic for one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.
The La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology is a private biomedical research institute located in UC San Diego’s Science Research Park. The South Shell Lab Build-Out project consists of 6,000 square feet of flexible laboratory space for biomedical research, including a tissue culture lab, principal investigator offices and a lab technician office area. The project improved upon the existing building lab standards by testing multiple laboratory layouts and implementing lessons learned from past projects. The space’s open lab environment encourages a collaborative work environment.
This campus houses one of the most advanced facilities of its type in the world, setting new standards not only for biotech process design and automation but also in project execution and delivery. Since its completion, this 90,000-liter-capacity facility has produced significant cancer and arthritis therapies for the U.S. and the world. While all mammalian process-based, the facility has thrived in its ability to campaign manufacture the blockbuster drugs Rituxan (first ever FDA-approved biotech therapy for cancer), Avastin and Actemra. FPBA created an inspiring, worker-friendly campus with flexibility for unknown growth. The team also master planned an expandable campus (up to 1.2 million square feet) supported by a central utility “spine” to which future buildings could be readily connected. The result of this project is a large-scale, integrated biotech manufacturing campus that was master planned in a design-build collaborative effort with the client, contractors and many engineering disciplines to handle the profound special needs of its client and the biopharmaceutical industry.
