Pharmaceutical Cellular Quality Control Laboratories

Contract Value:- £1,800,000
Completed:- December 2019
Location:- Romford, Essex

• • Complete Turnkey Laboratory Refurbishment
  • Category D Clean Room
  • Fixed Volume Fume Cupboards with Alsident Arms
  • Solid Grade Laminate Lockers
  • Negative Pressure HVAC System
  • Low UV LED Lights
  • White Rock Wall Linings

Expansion to deliver new products to the market has driven investment into the redevelopment of the client’s pharmaceutical cellular quality control laboratories. This project sees the relocation of the existing laboratories into a 2-storey building which predominately housed offices. Iab was successful in securing the contract to design and build a series of labs including a large open plan quality control laboratory, cellular laboratories with cat D, pharmaceutical clean air supplies, laboratory offices, locker rooms, staff kitchenette and meeting rooms. The project included an in-depth review of the clients current and future requirements leading to a comprehensive design and client sign off.

This project was spilt across the ground and first floor of the clients existing office. On the ground floor, we created a category D clean area which comprised of several labs. The three main clean rooms were to be used for bioburden, total viable count (TVC) and sterility. The labs in this area of the ground floor are positive pressure particles 0.5UM less than 3,520,000. 5.0UM less than 29,000 at rest.  The air in the labs is changed between 10-15 time per hour. For samples to be able to come into this clean area easily, we created a sample reception with a pass-through hatch in the largest of the labs in this area.  All the walls in this area were clad with white rock wall lining.

The first floor is comprised of the main lab which has over 140 linear meters of benching & 8no. fume cupboards. The lab contains the laboratory instruments the client uses to perform the QC testing. Adjacent to the main lab is the dedicated wash-up room. Which houses a large autoclave. The autoclave requires a custom-made extraction hood to help remove the steam and heat when the autoclave is opened. This area also has a bespoke stainless-steel sink for manual cleaning large items. Due to the chemicals used in this process, we have installed a linear extract hood to the rear of the sink.

The work that our client carries out requires that all the laboratories are fitted with low UV LED lighting. This is the reason why they are no windows for daylight within any of the labs on either the ground or first floor.  To ensure compliance with the required lighting levels we had to design the area to ensure there were no sources of natural daylight through windows in any of the labs.

The project including review development of a detailed design and refurbishment of the existing 2-storey building took 8 weeks for design and 35 weeks for the strip out construction and commission of the new facility.