St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Wins DBIA Award
Austin AECOM design-build project earns merit prize
CHICAGO (October 20, 2006) – In just 18 months, Austin AECOM designed, engineered, and constructed a state-of-the-art, $29 million pharmaceutical production facility for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) recently announced that this project earned a merit prize in its 2006 National DBIA awards competition.
Austin AECOM was selected by St. Jude for this 65,000 square-foot facility project, designed to incorporate stringent current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) standards set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center that has built such an on-site facility to develop and create a wide array of clinical compounds, orphan drugs, and highly-specialized medicines and vaccines. Eighteen months after construction began, scientists at St. Jude produced a highly-anticipated vaccine utilizing the functions of this new pharmaceutical production facility.
Applying design-build expertise, Austin AECOM was able to complete the project in a limited amount of time and under budget, allowing St. Jude’s researchers to quickly make use of the facility and speed the discovery and production of new vaccines and medicines that target such illnesses as cancer, leukemia, and hemophilia.
“The team from Austin AECOM worked hand in hand with St. Jude representatives during the design-build process to ensure that the facility met current requirements for clinical scale drug production,” says Dr. John S. Coleman, vice president of Therapeutics Production and Quality for St. Jude’s. “After working in the facility for three years, I am still impressed with the way Austin took St. Jude’s vision, applied the design-build process, and constructed a state-of-the-art clinical production facility in just 18 months.”
The award will be presented during the DBIA’s Professional Design-Build Conference on Thursday, October 19, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee.
