interior refrigerators, Photo Credit: Nick Kutchi

National Institutes of Health Interim Pharmacy Expansion

National Institutes of Health Interim Pharmacy Expansion | Bethesda, MD

The DPR Construction, Perkins+Will, and CFR Engineering design-build team was selected to renovate and expand the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center’s interim pharmacy unit. The expansion project was critical for NIH. In order to do a complete renovation of the permanent Clinical Center pharmacy (also being performed by DPR), NIH needed to relocate its existing pharmacy functions and hazardous drug storage to a new, temporary area.

Project

Details

The Interim Pharmacy Expansion was made up of three discrete but related projects: renovations to existing lab space into cleanroom space for USP 797-compliant sterile compounding, the build-out of USP 800 hazardous and non-hazardous drug storage areas for, and creation of a new mechanical room to support these functions. The scope of construction included pre-demolition testing, adjusting, balancing, installation of negative air barriers, demolition of existing space, installation of new cleanroom wall and ceiling panels, lab and scientific equipment, and utility shutdowns to tie into the existing building.

Pharmacy compounding, the science of creating personalized medicines for patients, has become a specialization due to the costs of developing new medicines and the rise of bulk medicine manufacturing. As a research institution, NIH still performs compounding and it is a vital part of their work to discover new treatments. The new sterile compounding suites allow scientists to increase the production capacity of medicines for Clinical Center patients.

Photo: Mike Goemaat

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