Sector Focus: Life Science Development Boom

Jessica: All right. Well, thank you, Jason. We’re back here today with Christine Mosholder, we are going to be talking all things life sciences. She is our go-to person for our projects across the country. She happens to be based out of our Boston office, but that does not stop her or her team from getting into all of our projects and helping our clients across the country. There’s a lot going on with life sciences right now and her experience and her knowledge in this. We can’t say enough about all of the value and everything. We’ve seen her team at Fort Point bring to the table. Ever since we teamed up with them and their great group over there. So without much more of an introduction, Christine, thank you for joining us today. Let’s get going on all things life science.

Christine: Exciting. All right, let’s do it.

Jessica: Alright. So just starting with the general questions right now. What is enticing about life sciences? Why does it keep coming up? Why is it in the news, what’s going on in the development scene with that sector?

Christine: Yes. So you know, we made a conscious decision, thankfully, 15 years ago to get into this sector. Honestly it has been thriving. One of the really exciting things in Boston for life sciences, a pretty mature market, sort of on the bleeding edge there. And you know, it’s everything from supporting startups, lots of startups coming out of incubator spaces to very mature, large international pharmaceutical companies and the innovation and the speed at which the research is happening really drives interesting and challenging real estate projects.

What’s happening now is there’s just such a demand that the radius of spaces people are interested in just keeps expanding. It was, you know, Cambridge was the hub and everybody wanted to be in Cambridge, but now folks are going to the Seaport innovation district. They’re moving to the suburbs.

And we’re seeing a lot of expansion in further suburbs with GMP type facilities, manufacturing, and some of the larger footprints that folks are looking for. I think for our team, it’s really exciting because it really connects them to a greater purpose. We’re project managers, right.

We oversee the design and construction of space, but at the end of the day, this really connects them with a greater purpose with all the therapies that are coming out. We’re working with a company that’s improving organ transplants, for example. It’s really nice to be connected to a greater purpose, although we’re just providing the spaces, the, you know, the safe, efficient spaces that they’re in. That’s been a real bonus for our team.

Jessica: But just the work that our clients are doing and changing the world.

Christine: At breakneck speed, you know, like, honestly right now, I think it was very evident to the world. How quickly, these things are happening because of the vaccines that were developed so quickly.

And I think initially it sort of made people nervous. Like how can this happen? But being so close to these companies, you can see the dynamic nature of these labs and these scientists and they’re so driven –

Jessica: And nimble, they seem to be able to just turn on a dime.

Christine: Yes. So what happens in turn like particularly these startups they’re super eager and nimble and they expect their project teams to be the same. So a lot of times, like we have a fabulous relationship with a company, Beam Therapeutics, as an example, we started with them, there were four people, right. And they have grown significantly. And now we’re, we’re just moving them into 125,000 square feet of lab office in Cambridge. That trajectory over the last few years, you had to keep up with it.

Your team had to be super dynamic because there were hiring these brilliant scientists for various therapies and research. And you had to pivot at any given time to support their workflows. That’s a particularly exciting project and they’re really making a significant impact on people’s lives.

Jessica: Well, they’re making huge impacts and you read about it every day and it’s exciting to know that we’re working with

Christine: We’re a small piece of it.

Jessica: Right. Well, just at that level just to see what they’re doing is completely inspiring. And you know, so you talk about being able to pivot and brilliant minds, these companies are hiring. I can also see that making these projects more challenging. Because that nimbleness, that needing to pivot really having to be creative, I can see that also being a challenge to build such a unique building or lab space. How do you guys handle that?

Christine: So, particularily right now you have to deliver these spaces quickly, but everybody’s hearing about the volatility with commodities and supply chain.

There’s a lot of things we’re doing right now to try to accommodate these milestones for clients. And, you know, we were accustomed to pre purchase packages. For example, from mechanical equipment generators unique equipment for lab spaces, maybe autoclaves and glass washes. So that was sort of always part of our process to run that in parallel.

But now it’s everything from autoclaves and glass washes that take 20 weeks to get, but so do solid wood doors and glazing, right? So there are these commodities right now that you wouldn’t have anticipated. You need to put in that pre-purchase package as well. And one thing that’s great. Now that we’re part of Cumming, is we have these great internal resources, right?

We have an economist, who’s studying these things every day. We have great cost managers who are helping us make this process for clients more predictable and really stabilizing the budget and schedule and being able to predict what’s going to take longer, how much is it going to cost, is there a premium and being able to set expectations really early in the process and that’s been a huge value to our clients.

Jessica: Having that internal forecasting analytics team who can see it, and there’s no crystal ball. They always tell me that when I ask them specific questions and try to get them to tell me what their crystal ball is saying, but having that resource with the research and the knowledge really helps guide our timelines and helps clients feel a little bit more calm in time that maybe is a little more volatile. I can imagine that even with these challenging projects, how bringing that to the table can really kind of calm a situation.

Christine: Sometimes it just tells us, all right, we’re going to need a contingency plan. Right. We’re going to occupy the space and here are the three workarounds we know right now we need to plan for, you know, you might not have nitrogen generation in time. So you have to bring in tanks of nitrogen, right. Work arounds. But at least you have that planned into your overall schedule. And you can work with the lab ops folks and make those accommodations early on.

Jessica: And I think your guys’ experience, it’s so deep in the life sciences, knowing those potential workarounds, it can change the entire project I assume for the client.

Christine: Yeah. It’s just mitigating those risks really ultimately. And. You know, a lot of times, like I said, the, particularly the startups coming out of incubator space, we’re building out their first generation of their own branded space.

They’re super eager to get in and start working. And they’re perfectly happy as long as they know in advance that we’re going to have to make some accommodations, right? There’s like, I just want to get in there and start doing science as long as expectation is set. Exactly. Yeah. And they’re happy to do it, honestly.

They’re, they’re very flexible. Which actually, that’s one thing that’s sort of a common denominator that I find between the startups and big pharma right now. Ultimately what they want is flexible lab space. And that was probably before. The biggest evolution I’ve seen over the last decade or so, you know, lab benches are on wheels.

You have access panels for utilities in the ceiling. It’s almost like bus duct. You know, you can plug in anywhere for gases or generator, power compressed air, whatever it might be. It’s sort of modular throughout the lab so that it really supports reconfiguration over time. And suits various workflows.

Jessica: And so I think you just jumped to a point that I was just going to ask you about what you see trending in this recent boom with life sciences. Is it that modular setup? What are some other things you guys are seeing?

Christine: Yeah, so definitely modularity and the ability to reconfigure now, obviously that’s not possible in certain types of labs.

It’s more complicated when you’re dealing with. That has HPLCs and fume hoods that are hard ducted, right? Those are not easy to work around. But in general, even some of the automation labs that we’re doing, they’re thinking about how to make those modular so that you can more easily reconfigure a workflow.

I think there’s a lot of AI coming into labs, the automation where we’ve worked on a few automation labs recently that were supporting COVID testing for example. And that was a great experience. It tends to be a bit design-build because it’s all happening for the first time. These are like groundbreaking projects and you have engineers and process folks, and everybody’s working together to figure it out.

In a design build way, which is also pretty exciting.

Jessica: Right, right. We’re talking a lot about what you’re seeing day to day in the Boston/New England community with life sciences. What are you seeing? And what are clients asking for on a national level? Is that a little different? Have you been approached with a different set of questions that you weren’t expecting and if maybe the California folks, or what do you kind of seeing across the nation?

Christine: So it’s interesting because like I said, at the beginning. We are a more mature life science market here, which I don’t think I fully appreciated again until we became part of Cumming and now we can offer a diversity of geography, right? So we have offices across the country and in Europe, and that’s actually really been valuable to clients like we have a client, Gingko Bioworks, who is really benefiting from the fact that we can connect the dots and various locations. And I think honestly the knowledge base here, we’re able to leverage in other locations and can kind of anticipate some of the things that are going to happen in those markets.

Generally it’s similar types of labs spaces. Again, you’re seeing more GMP, more automation, some robotics and even with some of our clients, they’re developing things that aren’t your typical R&D lab environments. It might be battery R&D. Batteries are huge right now for everything from cars to solar to wind.

It might be really unique things like we’re working with a company that is making the skins for submarines. Right? I mean, you just say, yeah, you just never know. And I think part of the. What keeps us coming back is the technical nature of all of this, right.

Jessica: Constantly learning has to.

Christine: Yes and the complications or the complexities of the infrastructure are really interesting. So, you know, certainly generator, power, nitrogen generation, or pH neutralization, all of these systems that you really have to know what questions to ask and ensure that the A&E team is really integrating all of these pieces.

I think that’s probably a bit different when we’re connecting the dots and other locations. The project teams here in Boston have done a hundred of these projects. We’re trying to replicate in a standard way for these clients in other locations. , but it’s super helpful to have those boots on the ground.

Jessica: Yeah. You nailed it earlier too, about knowing the right questions to ask, because if you don’t know the right questions to ask, you’re already starting behind.

Christine: And you’re not protecting the client. Right. It’s all about knowing and sort of anticipating what’s coming. And I think that’s something that folks really appreciate and the more experiences you’ve had, you know, what to look for, ultimately.

Jessica: A lot the lessons learned.

Christine: Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure.

Jessica: Talking about kind of what we’re seeing currently and in the future, with your experience over the last decade, how have you seen things evolve? What are some of the benefits to where we are today? Looking back, how do you feel about all that and what do you see?

Christine: Well, I do see that our clients are not only focused on sort of the productivity and safety within the labs, but there is a lot more focus on sustainability as well. It’s something that I think internally we have a group obviously that does sustainability and energy. And I think it’s something that is an interesting intersection because frankly a true R&D lab is in direct conflict with anything sort of sustainable in a way, because of the amount of power and mechanical equipment that’s required. So it’s an interesting challenge to make these spaces, whether it’s LEED certified or just being responsible. I think it is something that clients are really focused on right now.

Jessica: Gotcha. What in particular about Boston, the New England area, is really enticing about that geographical area for developers? Why is that such a hub?

Christine: It’s this really sort of perfect storm of an amazing labor supply. These super smart people coming out of great universities and in the area and that coupled with like this hub of private equity.

And so the resources that are all here sort of make for this great environment for all of these startups and innovation and people who are just driven to make a difference. And so that demand, we also support a number of developers who right now, the thing to do is either convert your current site to lab, office combo, or build something new out of the ground, state of the art lab space.

Jessica: Okay.

Christine: We’re helping a number of developers with projects like that. And in those cases, as an advisor to the developers, you’re trying to sort of anticipate whether it’s generator capacity. Loads for all the mechanical, trying to make it lab ready. That’s like the term everybody’s using right now.

We want to develop a lab ready space. And then ultimately when you get a tenant that gets customized to the type of, of science you’re doing again, it might be skins of a submarine, or it might be a wet lab for cell therapy.

Jessica: Gotcha. So there’s a lot of variation in that laboratory space. So outside of the New England area, is there anywhere else that you guys are noticing as a hotspot, a big hub? What are you keeping your eyes on in terms of a different region?

Christine: Yeah, there’s actually some pretty common dots. We’re connecting here from Boston. Interestingly enough, actually you know, now Cumming has an office in Dublin.

They actually have a hotbed of life science and that location.

Jessica: Really?

Christine: But research triangle is one that a lot of our clients end up with some type of a manufacturing site in that location. Although now we are seeing a proliferation of GMP spaces actually, outside of Boston, which is kind of fun to design and see through to completion because it’s just incredibly complicated, detail oriented, lots of validation, commissioning. And it’s also great for the economy certainly here in Boston. But research triangle, and then key locations in California, actually. So we have clients who we’re connecting the dots. So like Emeryville and other locations in California, those seem to be the most popular spots at the moment.

Jessica: Okay. And I hope that we know we’re moving away from all of this, but I do have to address it because it’s still something we have to worry about and still something we’re navigating. How did the region in Boston, handle the pandemic? Were there any sort of unique concerns that your clients had?

Are there sectors that you’re seeing bounce right back that are thriving or others that maybe you’re kind of, Ooh, we’re going to watch that and see how it goes. What are you seeing with us coming out of the, all of this?

Christine: So you know, the one thing that’s unique relative to the pandemic about the life science sector is people need to be in their labs to do their work for the most part. I mean, there are plenty of functions that could be hybrid. You know, they have to be in their labs to do their work. They have to take care of their animals that are in their animal care facilities. You just have to have boots on the ground. So in a lot of cases maybe it was fewer people on site, but that research continued through the pandemic.

Vivarium stayed open, you know, there was a lot of work being done onsite.

Jessica: So different than so many other industries.

Christine: Exactly. And, you know, the administrative folks could work from home, certainly. But relative to like our high tech clients or corporate or even university work, right. That is a sector that we had folks still doing work, and it was in a, a much different environment doing construction work under those conditions and all the regulations and trying to keep everybody safe. But some of our clients were actually working towards helping with the vaccine, helping with things that were required as commodities to supply to other labs, to keep everything going. So they really didn’t miss a beat, honestly.

Jessica: Oh, well it sounds like a really interesting sector and talk about timing and what the world’s going through and trying to navigate. I can’t think of a more interesting space to be in. Thank you for taking the time with us today and didn’t know there was anything else that you wanted to touch on that maybe we didn’t touch on. But this has been really interesting.

Christine: I’m really happy that we have the opportunity to have all these experts in this space, because it really is technically more challenging. It keeps our people interested. And like I said, it does tie you to a greater purpose, even if we’re just building the space for them, what they’re accomplishing is pretty phenomenal.

Jessica: It is, and it’s wonderful to see every day and turn on the news and look into what’s going on next. Personally, just digging in a little bit more and educating ourselves about what is going on out there. So that’s great. Well, thank you so much, Christine.

Christine: It’s been great, thank you.

Jessica: We will need an update from you soon. I’m sure the pace, everything is changing.