On May 31, Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) welcomed colleagues and partners to the official opening of the Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing located at Spring House Innovation Park in Springhouse, PA. It is the first training facility in North America partnering with the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) in Dublin, Ireland, and using GE FlexFactory, single-use processing equipment.

Avison Young’s Patrick Kelley was engaged by Jefferson to find the best location for the Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing. Spring House Innovation Park is the ideal location, centric to Philadelphia’s pharmaceutical industry and universities offering undergraduate and graduate programs in the bioprocessing field. Local pharmaceutical companies, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Jansen of Johnson & Johnson will directly benefit from the training facility.

“The largest risk to the industry is a shortage of properly trained bioprocessing engineers and technicians,” says Parvis Shamlou, PhD, Executive Director of the Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing. “Our training facility will close that gap.”

Bill Connor, Principal and VP of Project Management for Avison Young, is proud to have a hand in its process. “I’m happy to be a part of something that will change the history of biopharmaceutical processing and that it began in my backyard,” says Connor.

Avison Young is the world's fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Avison Young is a collaborative, global firm owned and operated by its Principals. Founded in 1978, with legacies dating back more than 200 years, the company comprises approximately 5,000 real estate professionals in 120 offices in 20 countries. The firm's experts provide value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management and financing services to clients across the office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality sectors.