North East and North Cumbria Provider Collaborative has appointed Merit to design and fit out a new multimillion-pound NHS Medicines Manufacturing Centre (MMC).
The UK-based industrialised construction and digital manufacturing specialist was appointed on this project after NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care gave this project the greenlight following a successful joint bid by the North East and North Cumbria Provider Collaborative.
The new Centre will be hosted by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and will be based at their Manufacturing & Innovation Hub in Seaton Delaval.
Works to manufacture the offsite components of the build have begun in Merit’s Cramlington-based factory.
The facility will supply a range of injectable medicines
The new Medicines Manufacturing Centre, which will work alongside existing aseptic units across the region’s hospitals, will produce chemotherapy treatments for patients and will serve the North East and North Cumbria.
The facility will also supply a range of injectable medicines, as well as ‘pre-labelled’ medicines to help support local hospital teams as patients are discharged home.
The importance of this facility cannot be understated, aiming to greatly increase capacity for aseptic services in the region through the delivery of up to 1 million dosages of medication each year.
The facility is also expected to create around 150 new jobs.
The state-of-the-art MMC will include the provision of Grade B and Grade C cleanrooms, production areas, Quality Control (QC) laboratories as well as admin and welfare facilities
The state-of-the-art MMC will include the provision of Grade B and Grade C cleanrooms, production areas, Quality Control (QC) laboratories as well as admin and welfare facilities.
Placing innovation and productivity at the heart of its offering, Merit’s expert in-house team designs and manufactures facilities for the healthcare, life sciences, education, semiconductor, and battery tech sectors.
A trusted expert in its field, Merit’s latest contract announcement builds on its collaborative reputation for working closely with regional partners to deliver high-quality Northumberland-based facilities.
The team delivered Northumbria’s Centralised Sterilisation and decontamination centre throughout the height of COVID-19 restrictions, and are currently delivering the Trusts new Community Hospital in Berwick.
Merit will manufacture approximately 87% of the build offsite at its Cramlington-based smart factory
Merit will utilise its FLEXI POD (trademarked) fit-out product-based approach to deliver this facility. Leveraging an offsite approach through Merit’s FLEXI POD (trademarked) solution will allow for the MMC completion by September 2025, 13 months from the contract award.
Merit will manufacture approximately 87% of the build offsite at its Cramlington-based smart factory.
Merit’s team has designed the facility with sustainability in mind, ensuring that NENC Provider Collaborative receives a Zero Scope 1 carbon-enabled facility, which will comfortably achieve an EPC-A rating.
The new Centre will be hosted by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Tony Wells, CEO at Merit, said: "I am looking forward to working closely with the NENC Provider Collaborative and seeing this project come to fruition over the next year. Our team will be applying our vast expertise in the design of sterile manufacturing facilities in order to bring this facility in operation quicker, so that life-saving treatments can be manufactured earlier to serve patients across the North East and North Cumbria."
Chair of the region’s Provider Collaborative and Chief Executive of South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, Mr Ken Bremner MBE, said: "This is another important milestone and really good news for patients as we continue to develop our plans for the new Medicines Manufacturing Centre.
"Whilst our existing units across the region will continue to play a vital role, the new facility will help us achieve much greater manufacturing efficiencies by working on a much bigger scale. It will allow us to greatly increase our capacity for medicines production, create a sustainable model for the future, and help us save time and money that we can reinvest in patient care."