North American Life Science Sector Wraps Up Construction on 73 Capital Projects, $3 Billion in Investments in First-Quarter 2013

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A spoonful of sugar and more than $3 billion in investments can help curb the worst of financial fevers. As the first quarter of 2013 enters its final weeks, the Life Science sector is on target to complete construction on a total of 73 North American capital projects, each as diverse as the industry itself. A recent survey of reported projects in Industrial Info's Pharmaceutical Tracker - Online Database reveals that the projects represent a total investment value (TIV) of $3.2 billion.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing North American Life Science projects to be completed in first-quarter 2013 by region.

Sources for the first-quarter activity include private industry, commercial developers, universities and the federal government. The projects reported include grassroot facilities, major building additions to existing sites, and in-plant capital. The projects are a varied group in both size and focus.

The largest of the projects completed is the $440 million Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai's new Leon and Norma Hess Center for Translational Medicine in New York, New York. Designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (New York, New York), the 11-story, 450,000-square-foot building was built by Bovis Lend Lease (New York, New York). The multi-disciplinary Hess Center will house space for six of Mount Sinai's most influential institutes focusing on brain, cancer, heart, children's health, genomics and imaging. The building has increased the medical center's research capacity by nearly 30%.

Opelika, Alabama, is the site of a new, $74 million grassroot vitamin plant. Pharmavite LLC (Mission Hills, California) chose the southern location to build a 300,000-square-foot plant to manufacture vitamins and other nutritional supplements.

Further north in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Public Health Agency of Canada wrapped up construction on the J.C. Wilts Infectious Disease Center. The $64 million project renovated the former Enviro-Test Laboratory to perform vaccine development and research into shortening the response time to combat infectious diseases.

From a regional standpoint, the Northeast region completed the most projects with the highest TIV, having finished 17 projects valued at $1.2 billion during the first quarter of 2013. Next up was the West Coast, with 10 projects valued at $536 million. The top three was rounded out by the Mid-Atlantic, which saw $400 million invested into completing nine projects. The remaining projects were scattered across North America.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, and eight offices outside of North America, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.