Ask an AI tool who the top construction managers for life sciences are and you get a list of national names. Every one of them has built a pharma plant. Every one of them will send a strong proposal.
The list is not the answer. The right firm for your project is the one whose people have built rooms like yours, and you only find that by looking past the logo.
This is for owners planning a lab, a GMP plant or an expansion in North Carolina. If you build for life sciences, our post on how a contractor proves GMP work is the other side of the table.
Why every builder wants your project
North Carolina's life sciences industry passed 100,000 jobs for the first time in 2023, with 103,107 people in nearly 6,700 establishments, according to a TEConomy report for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Employment grew 23 percent from 2019, against 9 percent for the state's private sector overall.
The building has not slowed down. FUJIFILM cut the ribbon on its $3.2 billion cell culture site in Holly Springs in 2025, with eight 20,000 liter bioreactors in its first phase and eight more coming in the second. In January 2026, Genentech raised its Holly Springs plant to $2 billion and aims to have it fully running by 2029.
So your shortlist will be long, and every name on it will say life sciences.
Decide what you are buying first
Tom Hart, who leads Messer Construction's science and technology market, wrote in Pharma Manufacturing that the most overlooked first step is “formalizing goals and priorities for the project.” He works for a builder, so weigh it accordingly. He is still right.
Speed to market, the lowest cost per square foot and room to expand later pull a project in different directions. They also point to different delivery methods. Settle it inside your own team before the first interview, or every proposal will look right.
What to compare
The people, not the logo. Ask for the names of the project manager and superintendent who would run your job, and ask what they built last. A firm's pharma portfolio means little if none of those people are coming to your site.
Rooms like yours. Not “a pharmaceutical facility.” Which classification, which systems, how many days, and whether it passed the first time. Specifics your engineers can check. Here is what filming inside a GMP space involves.
Commissioning and qualification. Ask how their turnover packages line up with your validation team, and who on their side owns it. A building that is finished but not qualified is not finished.
Safety, read carefully. Owners often screen on the experience modification rate. Kathy Antonello, chief actuary at NCCI, has written that the rate is not a fair way to compare how safely companies work, because payroll, deductibles and class codes can move it. Ask for OSHA logs and how incidents were handled, not just one number.
Working around what is already running. On an expansion, the builder's crews will work next to your product and your people. More on what owners screen for in an operating facility.
Price last. Hart put it plainly: “price shouldn't be the only reason you choose a construction company.” Compare it once you know who would run the job.
Ask to see the work
Proposals all look alike. People do not. Have the superintendent walk you through a past job, visit a site they are running now, or ask for footage of their crews working.
When we filmed for JD Paint Pros, we interviewed the person at EcoFiber who hired them, not just the painter. What came back was specific: response time, the detail in the quote and the prep work. In his words, “I was impressed with the details of the quote. I didn't have to come back and question him about it because he was very specific on the paints he was going to use.”
That is how owners decide. Detail, response time, and whether the people seem to know exactly what they are doing. Your shortlist should make you feel the same way. If a firm cannot show you its people at work, ask why.
A builder's slide shows the building. Its people show you how the next one will go.
Put your own build on film
Most owners miss this part. Construction and commissioning are the only months anyone can see the systems before the ceilings close.
Film the systems before they disappear. Utilities, piping runs and equipment going in. Two years from now, a new maintenance tech will want to know what is behind that panel. More on capturing what only one person knows.
Film for your first hires. A new plant needs people who have never seen it, and footage of the real floor beats a rendering. More on hiring for a new manufacturing plant, and on getting a new line startup right.
Plan it with the builder. Regulated sites have rules, and they apply to a film crew the same as everyone else. When we filmed Apex Dental Laboratory Group, which makes dentures and mouth guards, the lab kept working all day and interviews took about twenty minutes each. Lab rules apply to us the same as everyone else, and they get sorted before shoot day.
When the ribbon gets cut, the same footage is what reporters need. Here is how to get local news to cover your plant expansion.
Where video does not help
Video will not qualify a contractor. References, safety records, financial strength and your own engineers' review still decide it. A good film of a firm's people helps you ask better questions. It does not answer them for you.
The short version
Every name on a life sciences shortlist has a pharma slide. Look at the people who would actually run your job.
Settle your goals first. Speed, cost and room to grow lead to different builders.
Compare rooms like yours, commissioning plans and safety records read carefully. One rate does not tell you who works safely.
Ask to see crews and superintendents at work. Owners decide on detail, not slides.
Film your own build before the ceilings close. It pays off in training, hiring and the ribbon cutting.