Scitech-EKIUM, the pharmaceutical and life sciences engineering consultancy, has published Designing Laboratories Right First Time, a white paper drawing on lessons from live projects to help clients, operators and design teams deliver laboratory facilities that perform from day one.
The paper covers ten practical steps across the full design cycle, from establishing the scientific brief and defining containment levels upfront, through spatial planning, safety by design, energy optimisation and maintainability, to information management and survey sequencing. It is written for project teams working across GMP, non-GMP, containment and research environments.
Early-stage clarity as a design principle
A central theme of the paper is that the decisions with the greatest downstream impact – containment level, cleanroom grade, spatial allowances and energy strategy – are also the ones most frequently left too late. Scitech-EKIUM’s position is that locking these down at concept stage and managing them through formal change control from that point, is the single most effective way to reduce rework, protect programme and control cost.
The paper also addresses energy optimisation in detail, covering demand-controlled ventilation, high-efficiency primary containment, heat recovery, cold storage consolidation and sub-metering – all approached from the perspective of what is achievable without compromising containment integrity.
“The best outcomes come when the science, safety and sustainability drivers are pinned down early and then used to steer every downstream decision. This paper sets out what that looks like in practice.”
Developed from project experience
Scitech-EKIUM has delivered laboratory and cleanroom projects across the pharmaceutical, biologics, API manufacturing, radiopharmaceutical and research sectors. The white paper reflects patterns observed across that project base – where early clarity has driven programme efficiency and where late-stage changes to containment strategy or spatial allowances have caused cost and delay.
The publication follows Scitech-EKIUM’s recognition at the Cleanroom Technology Awards 2026, where the team won Best Cleanroom Design for the advanced therapy medicinal product facility at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The project demonstrates several of the principles covered in the paper, including early containment definition, safety by design and close coordination between the scientific brief and the built environment.
The paper is available as a free download and interactive online resource at www.scitech.com/designing-laboratories-right-first-time.
