Master Lab Moves and Spend: Failures & Successes to Learn From

Without further ado, let's move into our panel.Uh, this panel is sponsored by Zainoand they're gonna be talking about Master Lab movesand making procurement decisions.We're very happy to have these panelists with us today.So we have Joel Baskin, who's the Directorof Operations at N Vita Biosciences, Nathan Foreman,life Science Facilitiesand Operations Consultant at Foreman Facilities Advising.And this session's gonna be moderated by Lindsay Fitzgerald,senior Account Executive at zi gm.Thank you. So,we're gonna be covering a couple of topics today.Uh, we want this to be interactive,so please just raise your hand if you do have a question.We'll try to get to all of them.Um, like they said, we're,we're gonna be covering a couple topics.So lab moves. What are the pitfalls to avoid?Um, and with the two individuals here,what have they experienced personally, um, you know,throughout their tenure when it comes to lab movesand what they've learned from it.Um, and then we'll get into procurementand how we can make that scalable, especiallywith the growth trajectory of biotechs when you're movingto different locations, when you're expanding,when you're raising money and growing,how can you make that scalable?So without further ado, I'll let Nate kick it off.Thanks everyone for your time for joining us.Uh, I'm Nathan Foreman.I'm a facilities consultant hoping, uh,helping predominantly life science companies with any rangeof their facilities, projects, but mostly findingand moving into new spaces.Thanks, Nathan. Uh, I'm Joel.I'm the Director of Operations at Veta Biosciences,and my background was in bench science and research, uh,before making the transitions.So kind of a circuitous route to operations.Great. So the first subject we're gonna talk aboutis lab move.So specifically, how do we even start the process?What are the triggers, um, instarting the actual steps to get that done?And also, what can we learn from even mistakes that happen?Um, and there's no one better I can think of than Nateto to talk about this.He's experienced this a lotwith startup biotechs all the way upto large pharmaceutical companies, whether, you know,they're just growing organicallyor if they've actually gotten bought by, you know,another large pharmaceutical company. So I'll let youTake the stage. Thank you, Lindsey.Uh, yeah.So I've helped over a dozen companies, uh, relocateor grow into newer, bigger, better spaces,sometimes headquarters.Uh, there's a whole variety of triggers, uh,that we should be looking out for.And really, the, the main key to that is,is keeping an eye out nice and early.The biggest pitfall that I have seenwith clients in the past is when they, uh,start looking into the process of expandingand relocating, uh, a little bit too late.And it really just pigeonholes them, sends them down pathsthat can get expensive, time consuming, uh,or rushed where mistakes are made.So those biggest triggers to look out for,first one is evolving business demands or, uh, timelines.If you have sudden, uh, pivots in your business activitiesand all of a sudden you've got a headcount, uh, surgethat comes up, allof a sudden you are finding yourself out of space.And, uh, and that's something that we want to avoid.So having that, uh, forecasting, meetingwith your leadership team, meeting with the various teamsto, uh, forecast those headcounts is, uh, is a big thing to,to look out for, uh, other activities,uh, bringing those in-house.So if all of a sudden you're talking with CMOsand the budgetsor the timelines, uh, are way past, uh,what your intended targets are,and all of a sudden you wanna bring that activity in-house,I've had a couple clients say, oh no,we can make our clinical product better, cheaper,faster ourselves.All of a sudden now we're looking at a construction projectto built out A-A-G-M-P pilot facility.Uh, so things like that, bringing vivarium, uh,studies in-house folks like Charles River will charge an armand a leg to conduct your, your my studies.And so several clients have said we wantto do vivarium studies ourselves.That's another building project.Uh, other triggers can be, uh, market forces.So if all of a sudden your lease expiration is coming up atthe end of six months and there isn't any readyto go lab space, uh,and the current landlord doesn't want youas a tenant anymore, they want to convert to something else,or they're selling the building, allof a sudden your market is dictating your move.Finally, uh, graduation, whether you like itor not, when we are kicked out of the nest, eithera company is leaving their academic, uh, their universityor their incubator situation, sometimes that'sof their own volition.They're ready to build out, uh, their own headquartersor just like that lease expiration.They're getting booted out of that incubator to make roomfor other fledglings.Uh, that can be a driving force.But again, the key is not to find yourself, uh,behind that timeline.All of a sudden you're rushed into evaluating spacesthat might not be necessarily suitable.You're dealing with contractorswho may not intentionally gouge you, uh,but they may realize, uh, and,and recognize that your back is against the wallwith a lease expiration.And so they're not gonna sharpen their pencilsand really, uh, get the best pricing for youbecause they know that you don't havea ton of choice in the matter.Nathan, I think, I think I'm gonna focus on some mistakesbecause I recently did a move.Um, you know, I, one of the thingsthat you should do if you're doing a move ismake sure you can plug your equipment in.Um, you know, we had a building that we redeveloped,and it was a two year project,and I hadn't looked at some of the specs for two years.Um, not that things changed,but things weren't what I expected.And so it put a lot of burden on our operations teamto scramble and make sure theequipment could get plugged in.You know, these, some of these piecesof equipment are gonna have exhaust needsor gas service into the machine needs.And, uh, yeah, that was a mistake I won't make again.Um, I think another lesson is it's not just youand your team and a moving company.If you have high end pieces of equipmentthat you have service contracts on,you're probably gonna have a warranty that could get voided.If you don't have them move it, someof them will gouge you for that.Um, some will make you use their crate.Um, and trying to align that schedule with your schedule,with the moving schedule, that becomes a reallychallenging logistical problem.Um, and so yeah, that's just something to think about aheadof time and, and really schedule around.Uh, and then finally, I, I think we did it well,but a real lesson is just to communicatewith your teams over and over and over.You know, are you gonna do a phased, um, move?Are you gonna have a one week shutdown?Can your team tolerate it?What is, what is the expectations from you?Um, you know, and be sure thatwhat they said is gonna change two weeks before the move.So just constant communication.I think it's what you owe the teamsthat you're supporting on the science side.Perfect. And something, you know, in particularwhere Sino comes into play, especially when it comesto lab moves, um, I've, you know, I've worked at Sinofor almost four years now, so I've worked with lotsof different biotech companies, especially biotech companiesthat are making that pivotal stepto move from an incubator into their own space, right?And a lot of incubators even have homegrown solutionsthat you're forced to use.Um, and then you're stuck with the process of having to adddozens to hundreds of vendors, uh, when you're finally,I guess, kicked out of that, that space.Um, and some of those like leasesor contracts might not, um, pass over,you know, in the same date.So having to add, you know, like I said, dozens to hundredsof vendors is a very time consuming task.And half the time it's not necessary with a lotof your tail suppliersor suppliers that you don't order from, you know, every day.Um, so when it comes to softwaresand how they can help you scale as you're, you're growingand moving into different spaces, um,that's definitely something that Sino can help with.Like, for example, with in Vita,when they're moving into a new space,Sino can help hold ordersor, you know, change different dates with orders, um,with certain suppliers.So it's definitely something that, you know,people might not even think of.'cause you're, uh, negotiating a lease, you're tryingto make sure the ceilings aren't leak leaking,you know, all these different things.And it's a lot to keep up with.So sometimes, uh, there are also pivotal thingsthat can be forgotten and,and we're definitely here to help with that.Um, so I think to flow through to the actual, um, subjectof software and, you know, how that's important to scalingand not even procurement software, you know, exactly.But software that helps, you know, manage your biotech, um,and, and running everything you need.I think, you know, Joel wanted to talk about that as wellwith, you know, how do you pick certain softwares?How do you know exactly what you're looking for?I know we've had, you know, plentyof calls over the past three years,but you've also, you know, have evaluated lotsof different software even beyond procurement,like ELN software or how do we keep up with inventory?Because a lot of this happensand you have to develop these practices whenyou're moving out of an incubator.Um, so I think it'd be great to learn a bit about that asWell. Yeah.Um, I, we were with a different marketplace vendorbefore as the Gino,and at that point, um, you know, some of our triggers were,it wasn't integrating well with QuickBooks.And so the Gino did, uh, it also had a huge catalogof vendors, which is really what we wantedbecause we needed to decentralize the ordering system.We needed to push that out to the scientistsand have them be responsible for the ordering.We didn't have the resources on operationsto have a procurement specialist.So helped us do that.Um, and as we've continued to grow,I think we've grown into some of the features on zino.You know, now we're, um, using an ERP systemthrough NetSuite, and so there's integration on that,and we don't care about QuickBooks anymore.And it's, it's been helpful that we've been ableto just grow into new phases of what Zaino offers.Um, you know, we almost bailed on Zaino,as you remember, two years ago.Uh, because, uh, we were in this limbo phasewhere we were gonna be movingto an ERP, but we're still a startup.And, um, so there was some budget pressure, uh,and ultimately it, it integrated very well.And, uh, I think this Gino was really ableto accommodate some of the things we needed.Um, but yeah, it was just, it was a tool that we needed.Um, because one of the other mistakes that we madeas we grew as a startup was allowing peopleto have credit cards, which is just a terrible idea.Um, and once you open that door, it becomes so easyfor these teams, um, and so hard to track.Uh, and so trying to shut that door, um, we, we hadto force people to do something.And, and Zaino was one of the ways we forced people outof credit cards was, all right, you can only order'cause you don't have a credit cardthrough the Zaino marketplace.Um, because again, we don't have procurement.So that was super helpful for us in order to get organized.And now we have budgetingand we have a finance team,which we didn't at the time as a startup.And so, um, you know, we just have to grow and adapt.Um, and I think at least for us, we were ableto use different features of the tools it grew.'cause now we use cost centers thataligns right with our ERP.So it's really easy,and I don't have to be the budget police,um, on who buys what.And I think that leads to another question.This was actually brought up yesterday on a fewof the other panels when it comes to, again,not even zino, it came up yesterday.Like even like building an ROI forsay your finance teamor, you know, whoever's holding a budgeton even things like service contractsor saying like, oh, I actually do need maintenance on this.And Nate, I'm, I'm sure you experience this as well.Like, what is your experience with thatand how do you know team membersmake it extremely important to showthat they need certain things done where, you know,they might not have budget for itor there could be a large lens on what they're doing?Sure, thanks. Uh, in most of the companiesthat I've worked with, uh, they don't establish, uh,these tight budgets.And so they're drawing from these, uh,nebulous pools of cash.And it's almost always the casewhere the squeaky wheel gets the grease.Um, and so having, uh, some structure in place, uh,to be able to establish, uh, patterns, routines,and, uh, the importance, the priorityof periodic maintenance, uh, preventative maintenanceto avoid those reactionary sort of systemsthat you see in a lot of startupsand a lot of universities where it's these workerwork orders don't come inuntil something's tragically brokenand holding up a ton of work.Um, so having those systems in place to be ableto establish priority, establish, uh, routine, uh,and the discipline there that then lends itself to educatedand and smart spendingAnd on service contracts, our operations teams own them.So one, one of the things that we saw was, you know,if you have a relatively fresh PhD scientistwho wants a piece of equipmentand is gonna try to get a service contract,they're just gonna take the contract.Well, I have a script to follow'cause I'm gonna try to get all the money I can, um,because every company charges different things.So there's different things I askand we have to be able to walk away, you know,if it's more than 20% of the purchase price,really gonna look hard at whetheror not we need that service contractor if it's under six figuresor, you know, what is your experience?What is your network's experience?How bulletproof is this thing?Like we walk away from service contracts when we need to.Um, so yeah, somebody, meor somebody on my team will be part of that negotiation.And then we have a centralized computerized maintenancemanagement system, A-C-M-M-S that we can track, uh, for allof our assets and preventive maintenanceor, um, unexpected maintenance service,contract maintenance that's done.Um, so one of the tools that we use, uh, to do that,and I think your first question about this was, you know,what stuff you can home brewand what stuff you can't, I mean, you can't home,like software is built for thatand it's not this geno software, but there's tools for that.Um, you know, I thinkprobably most lab managers in this room have triedto build a homebrew tracker for spend in their lab,maybe even with credit cards.And it never works. I've failed at two companiesand I think I've finally learned the lessonthat I won't try that again.So yeah, you have to just develop other tools.You have to be able to have software at your disposal, um,because you can't really enforcecompliance in some of that stuff.And there's just so many mystery spends that once you getto a point where you need to do budgets, um,it's just unacceptable.So yeah, some things you can home brew, um,tracking procurement is not one of them, in my opinion.Gotcha.I think one of the things that I would recommend homebrewing is your master equipment inventory,at least to start with.So if you're a small companyand you're, especially if you're sortof coddled in a university or an incubator situationand they handle maintenanceand they've handled, uh, equipment procurementand you're maybe leasing some of the machines fromthat incubator, uh, when it's time to really take all ofthat equipment that maybe you've bought at auctionor used secondhand,and you're getting really scrappy when you moveinto your first real home.The bible that we use, I call it the Bible,is our master equipment inventory.It speaks to Joel's point about knowing, uh, what plugs needto go where, what size are those plugs,what are the circuits?Is it a high voltage circuit, completely different plug.It's, uh, nothing's more embarrassingor painful than getting into a roomand realizing that your minus 80 has flat blade plugsand your, all your, all your walls are covered with, uh,vertical plugs and nothing will fit.And the freezer freezer's full of stuffbecause you decided to move it full of reagentsand, uh, now you have nowhere to plug it in.So you gotta get the electrician in thereafter hours to swap in this plug.Easy to do pain in the butt overall.So that can be home brewed.Your equipment list should be tailored exactly to what sortof headings and, uh, criteriaand specifications you feel are most important that MEP,like the ductingor any exhaust drops that are required, any gases,any water lines, drain lines are tremendously expensiveto add later on,especially if you're working on the ground floor, allof a sudden you're having to go back in thereand trench a drain line just because this, uh, cell sorteror some washer needs a connectionand you don't have a sink in that vicinity.So that bible, that master equipment inventory can be homebrewed and then it can inform every step down the lineas you're planning out a new facility.It informs your space program.It talks about, okay, how many rooms do we need,how many benches, how many knee spaces?And then you work from there as you develop the restof the program with the help of an architectand hopefully their MEP engineers.So I think we're a little over the halfway point.I want to, you know, keep the floor opento questions if anyone has any questions so far.So I didn't hear you speak about like the potentialgrowth, you pass that back to future wise. Um, areYou considering that when you'reprocuring these buildings?Yes, so getting everybody's input really niceand early, all the way down to the end users in these labsso that not only are the, uh, personnel needsand that growth, what you're forecasted, we usually tryand go five years out at leastbecause you're gonna be signing a seven year lease, uh,typically maybe even a little bit longer dependingon what the terms look like.You wanna have a nice long forecast for that growth.Uh, that also includes equipment,so it doesn't do us any good to take inventory ofwhat you currently have, build out a new expansion space,and then all of a sudden your scientists are comingto you week one and saying, oh yeah,we need another three of these.Uh, so getting everybody's input onthat forecasted expansion, especially their wishlist.These might not even be approved by leadership yet,but you wanna at least get that on the table sothat you have an idea of what everybody's vision is forthat next space and that expansion, that growth.Yeah, we needed you when we built the lab in the va.Yeah, I, and we, I went through an expansion, so we werecrammed, we needed more space.So how do you split teams?So we split teams a couple blocks away.So we had two buildings and then that wasn't enough.So we started a two year redevelopment on a brand new space.And, um, based on my experienceand based on our leadership's experience,we ended up building a bigger space than we needright now in 2024.So it's a five year build out, that's our five year plan.We think we'll be busting at the seams in five years.And, you know, we're a startup,we're a venture capitalist funded startup.So I think we were able to have that long-term visionand spend that money, but not everybody is,it's not always in the budget.So we were fortunate enough that we could design a spacethat we think will still be usablefor us in five years, but it's, it's a challenge.I have you ever had the need for like a flex spaceor a temporary space to house fume hoodsor a temporary lab before?I know you're laughing, but we run into this all the time.I'm at Tennessee Tech and we're building brand new buildingsand we're renovating too.So we have a lot of chemical lab spaceswhere there's fume hoods and different types of equipment,and I'm tasked with as lab director to try to figure outwhere we're gonna put stuff whilewe're renovating buildings.Yeah. Um, well if you're renovating a building,you probably have a landlord on that building.I would ask them if they have any temporary space.That was one of the things we did.So, um, we had another space that they hadn't had a chanceto turn over, so I like took their whole loading dockand they mostly knew about what we were doing in there,but we had chemical fume hoods, we had humidity chambers,we had incubators, we ran new electrical, you know,we did a lot with a little, um, and we had their blessing.But, um, we also use a third party, eh, hand s consultant that can always help be our backstop, um,to make sure, you know, do you needto do air quality testing in here?I don't know. It's a warehouse. Let's check.Um, so, you know, it is nice that we can tap into those sortof resources just to make sure we're not making mistakes.But, um, you know, we still have one buildingand we moved out of one that was a concrete box,and you can do world class science in a concrete box.Um, it's a lot less complicated in a lot of ways.So I think you just gotta be resourcefuland, you know, make sure you have experts who can kind ofgive you advice that you're not putting yourselfand your employees at risk.You're not, you know, breaking anylease terms or things like that.But on a temporary space like that too,those terms are a lot,usually a lot less you can get month to month.It's a seven page document instead of a 35 page,50 60 page documents.So I think there's options out there,but kind of like Nate said, you gotta think about it aheadof time and you just gotta hit the bricksand you gotta look at a lot of places, um, and,and hopefully find one that fits.But I'm a testament tothat you can do great science in a concrete box.I can add to that a little bit.It also will surprise you how little work really needsto be done to properly prepare, uh, a flex space.Like you can seal that cement floor.I mean, you guys did that on a,on a lot of your floor, right?Where, and that's the finished spot.So it doesn't take a ton as longas you check off the safety boxes he's talking about.Uh, and making sure that you're not creating any hazardoussituations, especially if you're dealing in chemicals.Um, but you can seal that concrete floor, you can, uh,slap some paint on the walls, make surethat ventilation is taken care of,and all of a sudden, uh, you can dothat world class science.It may not look as aesthetically pleasing, uh,to whoever's in charge and might be walking through.So you don't want to tour investors through that space, uh,unless you're trying to, uh, impress uponhow scrappy you are.Uh, but, uh, but it can be doneand it can be done faster than you might think.Uh, a lot of my clients, uh, I tell them,if you're talking about building out a headquarters,if you're moving out of your incubatorand you've got a lot of funding nowand you're building out a proper headquarters that you wantto tour investors through,that's gonna take at least 14 months if we're building itfrom an empty shell.Uh, but if you need something fastand we can finish it outto the minimum required specifications, that can be done,uh, in as little as eightto 10 weeks depending on the the need.Any other questions?I can chat about one other major pitfall.Um, and that's, uh, literally having, just, like I said,getting those end users involved early todevelop your initial requirements.Uh, you also wantto have everybody from leadership all the way downto those end users, uh, signing off on your plans, uh,whether you're moving into a space that's already built outand you're lucky enough to find a buildingthat was generally suitable, or you're going from ground upand you're building it completely.You want everyone to literally sign off on those plansall the way down to configuration ofdrawers versus cabinets in, in the case workand which direction those doors open.Because every little change that comes at the endof the project, that'swhere those general contractors make their money.It's where everybody makes their money.It's when you make late changes that end up costing a tonof, uh, money, but also time.Uh, we've had projects delayed multiple monthsbecause major changes.Somebody came in and said, wait, that was supposedto be the NMR lab,and nobody communicated that to the design team.It was left empty,but then all of a sudden we're dealing with those gow lines,the magnetic fields,and we had to make major changes, uh, to, to insulatethat room from, uh, equipment surrounding it.So getting everyone, absolutely everyoneto put their initials on those blueprints, uh, make surethat it's sort of a speak nowor forever hold your piece situation even as it comesto approved budgets.Uh, I've seen it a few times where leadership, uh,didn't consult their partners, their, their co-founderson a certain budget,and all of a sudden the invoices started rolling inand it was a battle between those two co-foundersbecause one had not approved that total budget.So sign offand involvement from as many people as you're willing,I know it can create a too many cooks in the kitchen sortof situation, and that's something that you have to manage,uh, but way betterto help everyone feel like they were at least given a voicerather than somebody important coming inand threatening to quitbecause their lab isn't big enough when we're threeweeks away from moving in.So I was just gonna ask a question with respectto the finances behind this.Um, is there a formula that you use for a contingencywhenever you're doing a, a significant build or move?Like is it a percentage or a flat amount? Yeah,I mean, our general contractor,our general contractor carried acontingency all throughout the project.And usually you're gonna have atenant improvement allowance.I mean, if you're redeveloping an existing space,like you said a shell, um,and so you know,you're gonna get money from the landlord in some form inorder to make improvements on the building,and then general contractor will carry a certain contingencyyou're drawing down as you getchange orders throughout the project.And then, you know, typically you're gonna have,you're gonna hold back usually a 5% retainage on all yoursubcontractors that you have to pay off, uh, when the,when the usually, when the certificateof occupancy is granted.Does that answer your question? Yes, it does. Thank you.Okay,I think we have time for one more question.Uh, first of all, thanks for this.This is super informative.Um, I haven't been able to go through a lab change,but we're looking at one in a whileand I I just wanted to ask if you have anythingto say about just continuity of service.Like is there any schema where you can, you know,do, I don't know, get other instruments in and rent themor do one instrument at a time so you can do that sothat you, you, you're not droppingoff your customers at thatPoint? Have you ever played the demoinstrument game with a vendor?You could definitely do that. They figure it out prettyquickly, but, um, you know,if you're really invested in plate readers,you can probably get some plate readers for twoto four months, depending.Sometimes vendors only allow you to have equipmentfor a couple weeks, but that's a really nice tool.Um, you can lease equipment as well,but the interest terms are generally pretty bad.Um, you know, if you have multiple pieces of equipment,you could do a phase shutdown where you only have one pieceof equipment up at one placeand then, you know, you make sure it's not downuntil the other one comes up later.But if you're doing a long distance move,that can be really challenging.We were lucky enough to do a move that was pretty close,so we had the option to do phased, um, for a move.Does that, does that help?Yeah, with enough, uh, planningand foresight, you can definitely createthat overlap if you make sure to, uh, get the termsof your lease and your moving.Uh, just like when we're moving apartments or,or houses, if you get, uh, a little bit of an overlapwhere you're not trying to move everything in a weekend, uh,then you can definitely plan that sothat your occupant occupancy is granted.Uh, you can move certain instruments, uh, keep them running.Uh, and like Joel said, if you needed to lease, uh,there's a lot of companiesthat will do relatively short term leases,especially if you let them installand de-install the equipment than they feel a lot morecomfortable, uh, loaning that out.Uh, I've had several companies, uh, do a pretty good job of,of not only creating that overlap with the landlords, uh,and the movers executing a very rapid, uh, move,but then also phasing it so that you can,you can stagger those shutdowns.I've got one more thought to add.You can also just buy junk equipmentthat may or may not work.You can roll the dice on eBay lab X, you know,an HGP auctionand say, Hey, there's a 30% chance this is not gonna work,but you know, I'm gonna pay 20th of the cost.And if it gets me through,gets me through, it's worth the risk.Let's thank our panel.