BOSTON– DPS Group, a privately-owned, global engineering, procurement, construction management and validation firm, and TRIA, an architecture firm, congratulate ElevateBio’s BaseCamp for being selected as the 2021 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) category winner for operational excellence by the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE).
ISPE’s Facility of the Year Awards is an annual program that recognizes state-of-the-art projects utilizing new, innovative technologies to improve the quality of products, reduce the cost of producing high-quality medicines, and demonstrate advances in project delivery.
Winners in the operational excellence category exemplify the application of modern management techniques aimed to improve operating efficiencies, promote excellent quality, consistency and yield competitive cost of goods from existing and new facilities, processes, and manufacturing operations.
“At ElevateBio, we are reimagining the way cell and gene therapies and regenerative medicines are discovered, developed, and manufactured,” said Mitchell Finer, Ph.D., President, ElevateBio BaseCamp. “An industry-leading facility, ElevateBio BaseCamp is central to that vision. We’ve built an incredible facility and brought together a team of experts in immunology, regenerative medicine, and cell and gene therapies to help our portfolio companies and strategic partners get the process right from the start.“
ElevateBio selected DPS and its design affiliate TRIA to provide their synergistic services for engineering design, architecture, consulting, and interior design services for the fit-out of a raw warehouse space into a state-of-the art cGMP development and manufacturing facility for novel therapeutic technologies. Designed to feel like a “BaseCamp”, a physical foundation point for the incremental climb in the company’s growth, ElevateBio’s new facility features a collaborative open plan office and amenities that promote interaction, and provide flexible production suites for GMP manufacturing, laboratories, and a range of supporting utility and warehouse areas.
“We thank ISPE for recognizing ElevateBio as a FOYA category winner; the incredible team at ElevateBio for executing on our vision; and our partners at DPS Group and TRIA for delivering the facility we are so proud of,” added Mario Miele, Vice President of Facilities and Engineering at ElevateBio.
After evaluating and advising ElevateBio about potential locations for a retrofit, DPS and ElevateBio designed the GMP manufacturing space for this project. The design incorporates separate suites for viral vector production and cell therapy processing and was informed by modeling numerous process equipment scenarios for typical upstream and downstream processing of CGTs. DPS, TRIA, and ElevateBio worked collaboratively to design the GMP manufacturing spaces to be flexible enough to accommodate research, process development, and manufacturing for different technologies and cell and gene therapy products. DPS services included feasibility study, schematic design, design development, construction documents, construction administration, and CQV support.
TRIA’s design for ElevateBio’s open office and lab space embraced the ceiling heights, abundant natural light, exposed steel beams, and other original features of the former postal service distribution center. The BaseCamp concept blends a comfortable, nature-based color palette with the industrial aesthetic of the existing building, using a light-toned wooden ceiling lattice to highlight the exposed ductwork and help to scale the expansive ceilings of 16 to 24 feet in areas. Upon entry to reception, the space flows from the open office with café and huddle spaces, to the glass-walled labs that promote transparency for employees, and finally to the GMP manufacturing area. DPS and TRIA collaborated on the architectural design and MEP engineering of the lab suite for quality control testing and process development, ensuring a continuity of design and transparency between the office, lab, and manufacturing spaces. TRIA services included feasibility study, schematic design, design development, construction documents, and construction administration.
Other project team members include The Richmond Group (Construction Management); McNamara/Salvia (Engineering); Thompson Consulting, Inc. (Engineering), New England Controls (Automation/Controls); and 42° Solutions (Commissioning, Qualification, & Validation).
