My biggest concern in that scenario, like many others, would be the quality of the work done at the outsourced lab. While outsourcing always poses a quality issue, the most dubious aspect of this scenario is the reason for outsourcing to that particular lab. It was chosen based on a coworker having connections rather than research and reading reviews. If the coworker went to school there, chances are her connections are past friends. I would be more secure, in a business sense, if the researchers saw the project as just a job that they were getting paid for and not a project they were doing for their friend. Not only would they be more relaxed when faced with setbacks, but they would introduce bias in the experiments. Confirmational bias is real. Also, with a lab that far away, transportation of supplies would pose an issue. You cannot order animals and ship them 1000 miles, some might die, or otherwise become unusable for the experiment, in transition. Also, you cannot fly out there as often to check up on how the experiments are going first hand. You have to rely on hearing it indirectly from the PI.