Red Glead Discovery creates their own corporate house
When Medicon Village's new lab building is inaugurated after the summer, opportunities arise as spaces become available in other buildings within the research park. One of the beneficiaries is Red Glead Discovery. The fast-growing contract research organization was founded by former AstraZeneca employees and are a part of Medicon Village since its inception in 2012.
At the end of the year, Red Glead Discovery will be the sole tenant of an entire laboratory building. This will enable them to concentrate all their operations in a space customized for their present needs, while also providing flexibility for future expansion.
– We have grown from 7 to 57 employees, and we expect the growth to continue. With B403 as our new dedicated building, our ambition is to accommodate up to 100 employees, to facilitate our desired growth, says Ann Helen Forsling, CFO at Red Glead Discovery.
Flexibility and tailor-made areas go hand-in-hand
The adaptation of the building for Red Glead Discovery's needs will occur in four stages over three years. This will allow operations to continue while spaces are renovated and developed. Krister Henriksson, Team Leader of Chemical Analysis & Separation, is the internal project leader at Red Glead Discovery. He is deeply involved in creating the drawings and the plans for the rebuilding together with Medicon Village. The current focus is to remodel the ground-floor area. This was previously used by other tenants but is now being adapted for new purposes:
– As we seize the opportunity to optimize our own building, there are many parameters to consider. When the building was installed in 1992, it was designed as a chemistry lab based on the needs at that time. Today, new equipment and procedures mean that we will use only half as much lab space per employee as was the case back then. At the same time, we're creating new departments and services with spaces and equipment tailored for those. Some examples include compound management, cell lab and chemical analysis & separation facilities. We are also making adjustments relating to already previously offered services. This includes for example NMR and custom synthesis & peptide chemistry. Flexibility is an important factor since the future journey will determine whether we need to add office or lab space.
The next two steps involve remodelling of the lab corridor on the second floor, one half at a time. This will require constant rearrangement of spaces but is necessary to make it possible for Red Glead Discovery to conduct their business during the construction period. Once completed by the end of 2025, work will begin to add space for larger social areas that are needed for a growing workforce. Expected date for completion is 2027.
At home in Medicon Village
Red Glead Discovery's portfolio includes a complete range of integrated drug discovery services provided to customers all over the world. In addition, R&D projects in collaboration with external partners such as several universities and other partners are performed. There are also previous projects that has spun out into separate companies.
– We continually add new offers to our portfolio and require facilities that match constantly evolving needs. For example, having compound design and synthesis co-located with the first wave biology and ADME testing enables fast project progression and design-make-test-analyze cycles. Working in close proximity also provides our dedicated project teams with high problem-solving capacity. By handling compounds within the same premises and minimizing the need for shipments, we can save time, resources, and reduce our impact on the environment, says Krister Henriksson.
The new building creates opportunities for business development, as well as for evolving work methods and employee well-being.
– We feel at home in Medicon Village. The context is right, and the distances to other customers, partners and suppliers in the life science community in both Lund and the region are short. It's important for us to be able to gather all employees in spaces tailored to our needs. Whether it's about acoustics and cozy fika rooms or having a functional workstation, we want to create conditions that make everyone enjoy coming to work. This is especially important since most of our staff work in labs and have little opportunity to work remotely. We feel that we've found our home in this building and that we can develop both skills and staff numbers here for a long time, concludes Ann Helen Forsling.