Life Sciences construction is becoming increasingly complex, shaped by stringent regulatory requirements, rapid technological change, and growing supply chain volatility.
As projects scale in size and sophistication, procurement has evolved from a transactional function into a strategic discipline, one that directly influences cost certainty, compliance, and time-to-market.
This article explores how strategic sourcing can align Life Sciences construction projects with market realities. It examines the external pressures reshaping global supply chains, from labor shortages and freight bottlenecks to commodity price swings, and outlines how a proactive, risk-based sourcing strategy can build resilience, ensure GMP compliance, and deliver schedule certainty in a volatile environment.
Strategic sourcing: a risk-based approach
A tailored, forward-looking sourcing strategy is essential to the successful delivery of pharmaceutical construction projects. Strategic sourcing goes beyond procurement, it is about securing certainty in schedule, cost, compliance, and performance.
- Schedule: Meeting launch dates
- Cost: Staying within approved budgets
- Compliance: Passing inspections
- Performance: Enabling future technologies and supporting ESG goals
The wrong strategy can lead to cost overruns, validation or start-up delays and non-compliance risks.
To succeed in this environment, owners and contractors must align sourcing strategies with market realities - anticipating risks, building flexibility, and ensuring delivery certainty across every stage of execution.
Volatility: the new normal for supply chains?
Delivering certainty is increasingly difficult in today’s environment. Volatility across the US construction industry is reshaping how projects are sourced and executed. Traditional sourcing models are under pressure from external forces – congested ports, unpredictable freight rates, rising trucking costs, and shifting trade routes. Tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and commodity price swings add further complexity. At the center of this disruption is a shifting balance of supply and demand. Policy changes and emerging technologies are reshaping demand, especially for critical materials.
Below, some of the key sources of uncertainty are addressed:
Demand increasing due to a domestic production push
Big Pharma is making a clear shift toward domestic manufacturing, driven by tariff pressures, the need for resilient supply chains, and rising demand for advanced therapies. This includes both new capital investment and previously committed projects. From January to September 2025, approximately US$130bn in new projects had been announced, compared to US$170bn for the full year in 2024. Companies are not only increasing investment volumes, but they are also expanding into new hubs such as Indiana and Texas.
As the push for domestic manufacturing accelerates, labor shortages remain a critical risk. US construction spending is projected to exceed US$7tn over the next five years, with peak labor demand reaching 8.9m workers. However, only 5.8m workers are expected to be available (accounting for attrition and growth), leaving a projected shortfall of over 3.1m.
Regions like North Carolina, where pharma manufacturing and data center projects are increasing, face acute labor constraints. In the Raleigh area, nearly all skilled trades operate at less than 20% of required workforce levels. Even laborers, who have the highest relative supply, meet only about 65% of the demand, indicating that no trade is fully staffed.
Wages for key roles such as electricians, instrumentation technicians, and laborers are expected to rise by over 5% annually through 2029. According to the latest survey by the Associated General Contractors of America, 44% of respondents cited labor shortages as a key cause of project delays.
While supply chain management remains central to procurement, execution-level risks, especially labor availability, must be built into the overall strategy.
Port congestion is a key operational bottleneck continuing to disrupt supply chain timelines. The World Bank’s Global Supply Chain Stress Index (GSCSI) tracks global maritime supply chain disruptions by measuring delayed shipping capacity at ports worldwide. The index shows that global supply chain disruptions rose to 1.89 in August 2025, matching peak disruption levels from early 2022. While some ports show signs of recovery, volatility remains.
For example, the Port of Los Angeles is improving. Ships now wait less than a day to dock and about one and a half days to unload. However, containers can remain at the port for nearly six days before leaving, resulting in a total turnaround time over seven days.
Trucking costs continue to pressure overall supply chain expenses. In 2024, average trucking costs were nearly 33% higher than pre-pandemic levels, outpacing general inflation. Key contributors for this increase include rising driver wages, benefits, and insurance premiums. While fuel costs dipped in 2024, reducing overall trucking costs compared to 2023, non-fuel expenses still increased by 3% compared to 2023. The American Transport Research Institute (ATRI) expects costs to climb in 2025, driven by higher insurance rates, tolls, and continued increases in driver compensation.
See graphic below - Average operational cost of trucking in US
Global freight costs are becoming highly unpredictable. Container rates reached pandemic-era highs in mid-2024, according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), which tracks spot freight rates for containerized cargo departing from Shanghai. The index shows that the average cargo rate in 2024 was USD$2,496 per TEU - 149% higher than the previous year. While rates eased slightly in early 2025, they remain elevated due to ongoing disruptions in key maritime corridors.
Longer transit times and route changes
Security risks in the Red Sea and Suez Canal have forced vessels to reroute via the Cape of Good Hope, significantly delaying shipping timelines. In mid-2025, traffic through the Suez Canal was still 70% below 2023 levels. Shipping distances, measured in ton-miles, increased by 6% in 2024, almost three times faster than trade volume growth.
Commodity prices volatility
Commodity prices continue to fluctuate due to geopolitical events, shifting demand-supply dynamics, and policy changes, impacting project budgets and procurement strategies. Metals and manufactured inputs have shown the highest volatility.
The US steel market is a clear example. From 2021 to 2025, steel rebar prices fluctuated due to the Russia–Ukraine conflict, increase in infrastructure spending, and the imposition of tariffs. These tariffs have pushed domestic prices up in the US while creating an oversupply in other regions, widening the global price gap. This divergence is evident in the 77% increase in the US-EU steel price gap between February and March 2025, which underscores the need to revisit location-based cost benchmarking.
Other metals, such as copper and aluminum have also experienced sharp swings in recent quarters. Drywall and lumber prices have followed a similar pattern. Drywall rose by 25% QoQ in Q1 2025, while lumber prices increased by 9% in both Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. In contrast, cement and bricks have remained elevated but stable. While these materials have not shown major shifts, broader volatility continues to affect cost planning and procurement strategies. Looking ahead, steel and copper prices are expected to rise further. Most other commodities are projected to remain stable, though this outlook remains sensitive to policy changes.
Strategic sourcing in action: building certainty into pharma construction supply chains
The challenges facing pharmaceutical construction are clear – regulatory complexity, accelerated schedules, bespoke technologies, and global supply chain volatility. These pressures demand more than traditional procurement. They require a proactive, execution-focused strategy that extends beyond contract award.
Post-order management is central to this approach. It transforms sourcing decisions into reliable outcomes by actively managing risk across manufacturing, logistics, and delivery.
- Treat post-order management as a core discipline: Post-order management is not about chasing updates - it’s a structured process of verification, escalation, and resolution across manufacturing and logistics. When managed proactively, it enables teams to absorb demand shocks, navigate port congestion, and manage freight volatility in real time. It also helps offset longer transit times through early adjustments such as alternate sourcing or partial air freight. By validating supplier documentation, teams gain transparency on tariffs and surcharges, preventing uncontrolled cost escalation. Most importantly, effective post-order management protects GMP compliance by ensuring the sequencing and delivery of critical equipment align with validation milestones.
- Combine contractual baselines with active oversight: Contracts set the framework. Tariff assumptions, liquidated damages, and milestone payments are essential. But without active oversight, they remain static. Post-order management operationalizes these terms. It tests assumptions weekly, verifies progress, and escalates risks before they compound. Owners who pair contractual levers with expediting routines create a closed loop of accountability and performance.
- Use modular and off-site strategies to reduce site risk: Labor constraints and site bottlenecks can be mitigated by shifting fabrication upstream. Expediters support this by coordinating factory sequencing, verifying readiness, and ensuring modules or prefabricated systems arrive in the required order. This reduces exposure to local labor shortages and site congestion. It also supports GMP compliance.
- Build flexibility through sourcing balance: Balancing global and local sourcing is essential in a volatile market. Expediters help maintain this balance by keeping both international and domestic suppliers aligned. This ensures commitments hold even as conditions shift. Visibility across supplier pools gives owners more room to maneuver when disruptions occur.
Each uncertainty can be mitigated. Rising demand, congested ports, volatile freight, extended transit times, tariffs, and commodity swings all require active management.
Post-order management must be treated as a core discipline. Expediting enables projects to absorb shocks, adapt to constraints, and maintain GMP-driven schedules. When combined with clear contractual baselines, modular strategies, and balanced sourcing, this approach shifts delivery from reactive firefighting to proactive control.
In pharmaceutical construction, success no longer comes from placing orders. It comes from managing them, daily, until equipment is installed, validated, and handed over.
