Year: 2014-15

Company: Bristol-Myers Squibb

Liaison(s): Erik Rubin

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is a global
biopharmaceutical company firmly focused on its
mission of innovation to deliver lifesaving medicine.
Their strategy uniquely combines the resources
of a major pharmaceutical company with the
entrepreneurial spirit and agility of a successful
biotech company. With this strategy, BMS focuses
on the customers’ needs, giving maximum priority
to accelerating pipeline development, delivering sales
growth, and continuing to manage costs. As part of its
global research innovation strategy, BMS intends to
create “Labs of the Future (LOF).” These innovative
centers will be designed to optimize research within
laboratory settings that maximize productivity while
minimizing footprint. BMS engaged KGI to develop
a set of recommendations and justifications for
the reconfiguration of the current labs in its New
Brunswick, New Jersey campus, and to assess how
those changes will affect their facilities and staff.
The BMS TMP Team was asked to evaluate BMS’s
current labs and to examine a recent study of BMS’s
current research facilities and practices. Additionally,
the team was asked to develop a set of best LOF
practices (e.g., open and lean lab architecture,
equipment types and placement, flexibility,
sustainability, etc.).
To accomplish the assigned tasks, the BMS TMP Team
traveled to New Brunswick and performed a series of
12 interviews with focus groups and stakeholders to
understand their laboratory environment, workflows,
and capacity for change. After identifying a number
of key issues, the team investigated potential solutions
by performing an extensive literature review, visiting
3 industry labs in California, and interviewing 8
subject matter experts in the field of lab design. After
integrating all their available data, the BMS team
generated a report of recommended best practices
which was tailored to alleviate the identified issues and
to enable the creation of optimized Labs of the Future.