New UBC pharmaceutical building breaks ground

Vancouver, BC – A new state-of-the-art building to house the University of British Columbia (UBC)’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science celebrated its groundbreaking last week.

The $133.3-million building will contain 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.

It will also allow the university to expand its undergraduate program by up to 224 pharmacy graduates each year by 2015. In addition, the faculty’s masters, doctoral and PharmD graduate programs will grow significantly.

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.

The university says that CDRD’s academic-industry model has attracted over $70 million in funding from government and industry partners since its launch in 2007. This, in turn, 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.

The facility will be built to target Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design gold certification. LEED is the recognized standard in green building design, and is scheduled to open in 2012.