Pharmaceutical-Bio Industry's First-Quarter 2015 Capital and Maintenance Project Starts Near $4 Billion Investment in North America

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--As the first quarter of 2015 gathers steam, the Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry is projected to launch $3.9 billion worth of North American projects through the end of March. A healthy cash injection of that magnitude is cause for jubilation, or at the least, cautious optimism.

This robust investment of capital and maintenance dollars represents a 50% leap over the first-quarter 2014 figure of $2.6 billion. Another heartening aspect about the figures is the fact that quite a few of the first-quarter 2015 projects involve manufacturing expansions.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing first-quarter 2015 project kickoffs in the North American Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry.

The forecast first-quarter 2015 investment of $3.9 billion in capital and maintenance (MRO) spending is spread out over 173 projects, resulting in a $22.5 million project average. Turning out the high project average total investment value (TIV) that vendors to the industry have come to expect, the first-quarter 2015 figures increased 25% over last year's average.

The top project for the quarter thus far is the expansion planned for AstraZeneca's (NYSE:AZN) (London, England) Medimmune campus in Frederick, Maryland. Known as the Frederick Manufacturing Center (FMC) Biologics Plant Building 636 project, the company is investing $250 million to construct and equip a 40,000-plus-square-foot building to increase R&D, production and storage of monoclonal antibodies and other biologic products. Fluor Constructors (Greenville, South Carolina) is leading the project team, and construction should begin this month. The company plans to add at least 300 jobs when it is complete in 2017.

Maryland is host to yet another $250 million first-quarter 2015 project in Aberdeen Proving Ground. The U.S. Army Public Health Command is going to build a 280,000-square-foot, multi-story building and equip it for the research of epidemiology, toxicology, veterinary sciences, vector-borne and communicable diseases, environmental health, occupational health and other related disciplines, plus add vivarium space and a warehouse. The project team includes Affiliated Engineers (Rockville, Maryland) and Turner Construction Company (Washington D.C.). Following kick-off later this month, the project has a targeted completion date of June 2018.

The third $250 million project of the quarter is set for LaVerne, California. Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) (Foster City, California) is constructing a 400,000-square-foot plant and is outfitting it for the production, R&D and warehouse/distribution of intravenous and other biological therapeutics. Designed by Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects (San Diego, California), Rudolph & Sletten is handling construction of the project, which also will add central utilities.

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