New pharmaceutical sciences building for UBC; facility will house drug research centre

Vancouver, BC – The University of British Columbia (UBC) is receiving $86.4 million from British Columbia’s provincial government for construction of a new state-of-the-art building to house its Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science.

The new $133.3-million Pharmaceutical Sciences Building will feature nearly two hectares of floor space containing research and teaching laboratories, office space and classrooms, as well as additional space to be leased out to tenants operating in the drug research, development and commercialization field.

The facility will be built to target Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design gold certification. LEED is the recognized standard in green building design.

The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) will occupy research laboratories and office space in the building alongside the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The centre provides drug-development expertise and facilities to enable researchers from BC’s research universities and associated institutions to bridge the commercialization gap between academic discoveries in the life sciences and the development of new medicines.

Since its launch in 2007, the university says CDRD has attracted over $70 million in funding from government and industry partners, which has enabled the creation of research facilities equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation operated by highly qualified personnel at based at UBC, Simon Fraser University and the BC Cancer Agency.