Pharm Ops Building, Formulation and Analytical Laboratories, Hoddesdon

The Opportunity

Pharmaron required Austin to undertake various condition surveys and prepare separate concept designs to house Analytical Chemistry and GMP formulation business functions on the site at Hoddesdon.

This led into the preliminary design stage, where Austin consolidated various concept design options developed into a single project for a leaner dependency between business functions and to leverage economies of scale.

Through further refinement of user requirements, the project scope was defined. Upon acceptance, Austin prepared the detailed design solution, project programme and cost estimate for Pharmaron’s approval.
The project included:

• Review of laboratory functions and redevelopment of existing office space into a new forty-six station analytical chemistry laboratory.
• Creation of new floor plate within existing voids to contain subsidiary spaces, including balance rooms, glass wash areas, yellow light facilities and technical support areas for reagents, solvents and additional daily consumables.
• Laboratory protocol assistance with technology support for data collection and information distribution.
• Redesign of existing offices to suit current working practices, including teamwork areas for international meetings and collaboration.
• Review the existing process facility and develop them to meet c.GMP standards.
• New laminar down flow booth for small batch and bulk dispensary.
• 2 No. purified water systems – an independent system to serve AC3 labs, and another validated generation plant connected to an existing loop to serve the c.GMP formulation areas.
• Update of existing receipts and dispatch area to support the new building use.
• Major overhaul of existing process effluent drainage skids, controls software and philosophy. This extended to repurposing of 40 No. existing control panels and over 700 No. new field devices.
• Provision of centralised Compressed Air and Nitrogen generation plant.
• Austin provided detailed design, procurement, construction, commissioning and supported Pharmaron with validation activities through to operational status.

The Solution

Pharmaron needed to bring a modern dormant asset back into economical use. The Pharm Ops building was not used for several years with the M&E plant and components partially missing and/or not operational.

Pharmaron required Austin to:

• Undertake detailed and careful assessment working closely with Pharmaron to establish the scope, use and phasing strategy to bring the building back to operation.
• Work with the users in developing potential uses and developing hierarchies of new needs.
• Identify schemes that facilitated economies of scale and allowed for the overall project to be greater than the sum of its constituent parts.
• Ascertain long lead elements for early execution of construction and develop budgetary expenditure models for fast project implementation.
• Use as much of the available infrastructure as possible, this entailed considerable surveys and understanding of the existing BMS and Steam systems to allow this to be upgraded with other site wide requirements.

Once the scope and use of the building was agreed, Pharmaron required the facility to be delivered in a very limited period of time to meet business needs.