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Industrial Life sciences & pharmaceuticals

Novacore Health: clean rooms validated first time

A 185,000 sq ft fill-finish plant with ISO 5 to ISO 8 clean rooms for a biologics manufacturer. Built in 20 months and validated on the first attempt, so production started on the date the FDA filing promised.

Client: Novacore Health Duration: 20 months Year: 2024
The challenge

A regulatory date, set in stone.

Novacore had already told regulators when its new plant would start commercial production. Any slip in construction or validation would delay a product launch worth more than $2M a day in revenue.

  • 42,000sq ft of ISO 5–8 clean rooms
  • 3,800validation tests before start-up
  • $2M+in revenue at risk per day of delay

Clean rooms fail validation for small reasons: a leaky ceiling grid, a damper set at the wrong pressure, a weld that traps product. Novacore needed a builder who would treat commissioning and qualification as part of construction, not an afterthought once the walls were up.

We joined under a design-build contract with Novacore’s process engineers embedded in our design team from day one.

Our solution

Build it to pass the test.

We wrote the validation plan before the construction schedule, then built the schedule backward from the first test date.

  1. 01

    Prefabricate the clean rooms

    Modular wall and ceiling panels were fabricated off site and installed by a dedicated crew trained on Novacore’s gowning rules.

  2. 02

    Test as you go

    Every room was pressure- and particle-tested at 50% and 90% completion, so problems surfaced while walls were still open.

  3. 03

    One turnover package

    Commissioning records, weld logs and as-built models were handed over in a single digital package, ready for the FDA inspector.

The results

Validated, first time.

Measured against the contract schedule and Novacore’s own qualification records.

100 % First-pass validation

All 3,800 tests passed at the first attempt.

20 mo Design to production

Commercial batches started on the filed date.

−$4.1 M Under the GMP

Savings shared with Novacore at close-out.

0 Lost-time incidents

Across 620,000 craft hours.

“Corwell planned the validation before they planned the concrete, and it showed. Every room passed the first time, and we started production on the day we promised regulators.”
Elena Marchetti VP, Manufacturing, Novacore Health