Bringing lifesaving advanced therapies to the UK.
Merit is currently working on the construction of the first purpose built CAR-T Cell Therapy Manufacturing facility in the UK. The contract award followed a successful Pre-Construction Services and Design period with Merit, Reef and Autolus.
- Design and build of 7,500m2 manufacturing facility.
- Includes Grade C cleanrooms, laboratories, offices and warehouse accommodation.
- Merit’s design layout maximises manufacturing space capacity by positioning plant on roof top and utilising plant on process floors and office.
- BREEAM Excellent and Zero Carbon Emissions design.
Autolus is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation programmed T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. The new 4 storey, 7,500m2 facility comprises Grade C cleanrooms (30AC per hour), laboratories, offices and warehouse accommodation. The facility will be delivered in just 20 months from RIBA 1 to RIBA 5 using our offsite manufactured building platform. This saves significant time compared to traditional construction methods. The facility will provide 2000 treatments annually and save thousands of lives.
During the Pre-Construction phase, Merit supported the planning application and further developed and agreed the 1:200 layouts through collaborative client team engagement workshops. Merit developed the RIBA 3 design detail for all MEP systems with long lead items developed to RIBA 4 based on the Merit platform design, consistent with that of CGTC expansion project. We have developed the design in just 5 months from inception to RIBA 4. This project is an MHRA compliant solution, where the team has worked with MHRA directly as well as the client team including QA and operations, in order to meet their project affordability criteria.
Sustainability is important for the Merit and Autolus teams. Our design was developed as a Zero Carbon Emission facility using heat source pumps and heat recovery systems, significantly reducing waste through the use of 5D BIM technology. The facility is designed to BREEAM Excellent rating.
The mechanical design will utilise the Merit FLEXI POD® and ‘PAM’ and POD standard platform approaches which facilitate the fast track project timelines. 300 PAMS and 15 UltraPODs will be manufactured at Merit’s 270,000ft2 factory in Northumberland and shipped to Stevenage for installation by Merit’s specialist teams. The platform design is also pre-integrated into the DQ/IQ/OQ documentation.