Philadelphia Navy Yard Opens $2.5 Million Lab for Pharma Workers

Orchestra Life Sciences spent nearly $2.5 million to build a simulated clean room at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The facility opened this week to train city residents for jobs in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The program, called Kaazi, serves companies that need workers skilled in producing advanced drugs. Some of the first training groups will not require a college degree.

Orchestra is a technical consultancy that helps drugmakers build factories. The company moved its headquarters from Montreal to Philadelphia a year ago. Kaazi aims to solve a shortage of workers trained in specific manufacturing processes for new treatments. These treatments include therapies for melanoma, breast cancer, and other conditions.

Sumit Verma, an Orchestra partner, said the industry is excited about new drugs but lacks the training infrastructure. "You’re looking at first-of-a-kind treatments, whether it is nuclear medicine, cell and gene therapy, mRNA, biologics," Verma said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday. "The question would be: who’s going to produce these once they get past phase 3 clinical trials? So that’s where the challenge is in terms of subject matter expertise."

The training area contains working lab equipment that mimics a real clean room. A clean room is a controlled environment that prevents contamination. One wall is open to allow easy access. Lauren Lewitt, Kaazi’s associate director, told visitors that the space represents a grade B area where manufacturing occurs. "If we were working in this in real life, we would be fully gowned up from head to toe," Lewitt said. She demonstrated how to use pipettes and a biological safety cabinet.

Lewitt explained that the simulation removes the pressure of working with live patient cultures. "This is critical for people to get hands-on experience in real life, but without the pressure," she said. "They don’t have to have the fear of, ‘I’m going to mess up the cell line,’ or, ‘I’m going to contaminate this patient culture.’ We know how critical those are, how precious they are, the cells that are being worked on. So it just takes the pressure out of everything."

TerraPower Isotopes, a company founded by Bill Gates, will be a first customer. TerraPower is building a $450 million facility in Philadelphia’s Bellwether District to make actinium-225. The company plans to create 225 jobs and start production in 2029. Scott Claunch, TerraPower’s president, said finding skilled talent is a unique challenge. "In pharmaceutical manufacturing, there’s no room for trial and error. Quality and safety are non-negotiable," Claunch said.

The first cohort of 12 to 16 students will begin training in January. Groups with associate’s or bachelor’s degrees will complete a four-month course. Cohorts with high school diplomas will take six-month courses. Orchestra CEO Emilie Pelletier said the company wants to build careers for Philadelphians. "When we build the future of medicine in Philadelphia, we should be building careers for Philadelphians," Pelletier said. Kaazi is also in talks with Merck and Johnson & Johnson about tailored training programs.