Building the future: Agile and intelligent biomanufacturing facilities

For decades, life sciences manufacturing has operated under a paradox: It’s one of the most innovation-driven industries in the world, yet its production environments have been among the slowest to evolve. While other sectors have embraced automation, modularity and digital intelligence, biomanufacturing facilities often remain static, slow to build and costly to adapt.

That’s changing fast. Today’s biomanufacturing leaders are redefining the industry through modularity, intelligence and collaboration.

Despite scientific breakthroughs, many pharmaceutical production sites still operate using legacy approaches. Organizations constantly battle with rigid layouts, outdated batch processes and long construction timelines that stifle agility. These challenges not only limit efficiency—they also threaten competitiveness as global pressures mount.

“There emerges a complex interplay between physical infrastructure, location and human capital, as well as talent, investment and innovation. All of those will enable us to create or maintain a manufacturing environment that allows us to develop novel therapies, novel drugs and the cures of tomorrow,” explained Travis McCready, Head of Industries for JLL and Chair of the Global Life Sciences Advisory Board.

This interplay between physical space, talent and technology defines the next frontier of manufacturing. To keep pace with emerging science and global demand, pharma needs to rethink not just how it makes medicines—but where, and how fast.

1. Redefining facility design: Modular and activity-based

Biomanufacturing plants were once built to last decades, but that permanence has become a liability. Today’s leaders are trading static blueprints for modular, activity-based designs that flex as science evolves.

“The corporate world has already completed its transformation into agile, activity-based environments—manufacturing must now follow,” noted Kat Soda, Teva’s VP of Global Facilities Management and Real Estate.

That means designing for change. Prefabricated cleanrooms, plug-and-play utilities and scalable layouts let companies adapt production lines or pivot to new therapies without costly rebuilds. Global firms are now deploying standardized prototype facilities, enabling rapid rollout across markets while maintaining quality and compliance standards.

As JLL’s Gul Ducey noted, modular construction turns facility delivery into a repeatable, scalable process—helping biomanufacturers build faster, smarter and with greater cost control.

2. Integrating technology: From batch to continuous, manual to intelligent

Digitization is transforming how medicines are made. The industry is moving from slow, stop-start batch systems to continuous bioprocessing that keeps materials flowing—and data learning—around the clock.

JLL’s Matt Jackson, Managing Director of Business Consulting, explained that automation and continuous processing “represent a fundamental shift away from traditional manufacturing.” Facilities management technologies now predict failures, optimize performance and remove human error from the equation.

Digital twins, robotics and smart sensors are giving operators real-time visibility into every stage of production. Equipment can self-diagnose issues before they cause downtime, while data analytics continuously fine-tune temperature, pressure and flow to maintain precision control.

These systems boost precision and reliability, creating facilities that stay productive even under pressure. When paired with single-use technologies—like disposable bioreactors and tubing—manufacturers can switch products faster, cut cleaning time and maintain sterility.

The result is a new generation of biomanufacturing environments: Connected, adaptive and intelligent, built to evolve as quickly as the therapies they produce.

3. Partnering for progress: The role of regulators and collaboration

Technology alone can’t drive transformation; collaboration can. Regulatory complexity remains one of the biggest hurdles to agility, and the key is to bring regulators in early.

“You have to make regulators part of the process. If they co-approve or co-develop new approaches, they have a vested interest in making them successful,” emphasized Soda.

Forward-thinking organizations are engaging regulators at the concept stage, aligning on prototype facility standards and validation methods before construction begins. This partnership approach not only de-risks innovation but also helps create industry-wide standardization—a critical step toward cost predictability and faster market readiness.

Data transparency plays a growing role too. By using digital tracking and real-time reporting, manufacturers can demonstrate adherence to standards at every step, streamlining inspections and boosting confidence on both sides.

Together, these practices turn compliance from a hurdle into an advantage—creating faster approvals, predictable costs and globally consistent standards. When collaboration and clarity guide the process, innovation can move safely at the speed of science.

Agility in manufacturing isn’t about cutting corners; it’s about building smarter from the start. Here’s how leading biomanufacturing firms are making that shift:

• Engage regulators early in design discussions to streamline approval pathways.
• Deploy modular construction for faster build times and standardized global rollouts.
• Adopt AI and automation to optimize energy, quality and process efficiency.
• Plan with local context in mind—from power reliability to workforce expertise.
• Benchmark relentlessly to ensure cost discipline and consistency across facilities.

Soda summed it up best: “The more predictable and standardized you are, the cheaper and better you can build.”

By combining standardization with modularity, manufacturers can finally escape the cycle of one-off designs and unpredictable costs. A “prototype plant” that can be locally adapted represents not just operational efficiency, but strategic resilience in a volatile global market.

“Biomanufacturing 2.0” isn’t defined by any single innovation. It’s a mindset, a commitment to designing facilities that evolve as rapidly as the science they enable.

As McCready concluded, this transformation goes beyond operations: biomanufacturing has become a matter of national security and human progress. Facilities that can adapt quickly will not only weather disruption but also lead in the discovery and delivery of tomorrow’s cures.

The future of biomanufacturing is already taking shape. It’s modular, smart and agile—and those who adapt now will lead the next era of therapeutic breakthroughs.