📋 Tender Overview
Location Darmstadt, Germany
Estimated Investment €300m ($321m)
Merck KGaA (Merck), a pharmaceutical company based in Germany, will build a new state-of-the-art advanced research centre at its headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany.
The research centre named Life Science Advanced Research Center (LS ARC) will be utilised by Merck’s Life Sciences business sector to explore critical technologies for manufacturing antibodies, mRNA applications, essential products for biotechnological production and more.
Merck will invest more than €300m ($321m) in the project. The investment is part of a broader €1.5bn ($1.6bn) investment programme at the Darmstadt site by 2025.
The construction of the research centre officially began in April 2024, following the completion of the feasibility study in 2022. The facility is expected to begin operations in 2027 and can accommodate approximately 550 employees.
Location of Merck’s new research centre
The advanced research centre will be situated at the Merck Firmenzentrale on Frankfurter Street 250 in Darmstadt.
The new research building will be built facing the city centre within a central research and development (R&D) campus at Merck Group’s headquarters.
The campus is located along an area called the Innovation Mile, whose southern end is marked by Merck’s Innovation Center at Emanuel-Merck-Platz.
The Darmstadt site is among Merck’s most critical centres for life science R&D, with an estimated one-fifth of the life science business sector’s sales from new products forecasted to originate from this location over the next decade.
Merck Advanced Research Centre details
The new centre will have an area of 18,000m² (193,750ft²). It will encompass a gross floor area of 32,000m² (344,445ft²) with a total of six floors above ground and two subterranean levels.
It will include 7,500m² (80,729ft²) office and communication spaces, as well as 8,300m² (89,340ft²) laboratory space with modules of 650m² (6,996ft²) each, measuring 71m long, 68m wide and 28m high.
The Technikum, a demonstration lab on the ground floor, will be used to offer insights into the research work of the company. The technical centre at the basement will feature innovative automated logistics and storage technology such as a driverless transport system, vertical automated goods handling system to the laboratory, and fully automated storage systems (auto store and pallet warehouse).
The centre will focus on R&D in life science to strengthen innovation in downstream R&D, cell cultures, pharmaceutical processes, formulation and purification aids, analytical chemistry, and digital chemistry for researching and manufacturing antibodies, recombinant proteins and viral vectors. Research activities related to the mRNA value chain will also be based at the new centre.
Merck’s Advanced Research Centre design
The LS ARC will offer an open and contemporary working environment designed to foster cross-departmental collaboration
