Offsite construction specialist, Merit, has successfully completed a contract to expand a Lateral Flow Test manufacturing facility for Abingdon Health in York, UK.
The project was delivered by Merit’s specialist healthcare division, Merit Health, and is part of significant expansion plans for Abingdon Health, a leader in the field of rapid diagnostic development and manufacture.
Merit delivered a first class facility to further enhance Abingdon Health’s capabilities. Designed and built using next generation offsite construction techniques, the new facility was constructed with 39 Pre-Assembled Modules (PAMs). 75% of the build was manufactured offsite at Merit’s factory in Northumberland and then transported to York for assembly and installation by specialist installation teams.
The facility comprises highly technical spaces including wet laboratories that require close temperature control and dry room areas to a specification of 10% +/-5 relative humidity or less.
The new facility will support Abingdon Health’s ongoing development of high quality, effective rapid tests whilst enhancing their manufacturing capabilities and increasing output capacity.
Tony Wells, Managing Director at Merit, said:
“We enjoyed working collaboratively with Abingdon Health to deliver their new lateral flow manufacturing facility, which formed part of their exciting expansion plans. We manufactured a large part of the facility at the Merit factory, enabling Abingdon Health to continue their critical operations whilst we built their laboratory offsite. We achieved this by using our patent pending Pre-Assembled Modules (PAMs) system which was then transported to site for installation.
As well as minimising disruption, our offsite construction techniques offer fast track project delivery with improved quality, enhanced infection control and zero carbon emissions in operation.”
Oliver Gardner, Chief Operations Officer at Abingdon Health, said:
“We initiated our expansion strategy in 2019 to better serve the growing demand for rapid testing, which has been accelerated across all sectors due the exposure of lateral flow technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. The completion of this phase of expansion is critical for our plans going forward.
“Merit acted as a true partner, carrying out the build in and around our normal operations and minimising disruption for our R&D [research and development] and manufacturing teams.”
