Catapult Medicines Discovery

Targeted project management for catapult centre

The Situation

The Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) is the United Kingdom’s catapult centre for medicine research and innovation, headquartered at Alderley Park in Cheshire.

It was established in 2015 with a £10m grant from Innovate UK.

In 2018, further funding of approximately £10m per year was secured from Innovate UK.

In 2020, the centre announced fit-out and refurbishment works – involving the office and specialist laboratory space relocation including Cat2 laboratories and CATA and CATB fit-outs.

We were appointed to deliver the works and manage appointed contractors, including the MEP contractor and various OEM’s involved.

The Solution

The project involved:

• Moving specialist assets including mass spectrometry, microscopy tissue processing, and general analytical lab equipment;
• Installing all laboratory apparatus including fully coordinating OEM’s equipment;
• Building relationships with international and regional OEM teams;
• Property project management;
• Assisting with the refurbishment and upgrade of existing CAT2 Labs creating and supporting the national diagnostic lab network, to support the fight against COVID-19 building industrial testing capacity;
• Landlord and tenant interface;
• Collaboration role within property and asset managing team focusing on time-driven delivery for the facility in line with government timelines;
• Working with the FM Team to coordinate delivery and installation of specialist lab equipment, ranging from PCR Machines to Hamilton Robotics;
• Relocating staff personal crates, IT, and equipment.

The Outcome

We delivered the entire fit-out and refurbishment works on strategy, on budget, and on time.

Client Quote

A spokesperson from MDC said:

“From start to finish the entire Johnsons Lab Logistics team demonstrated levels of knowledge, experience, and professionalism second to none. We were all extremely impressed with the outcome of the project.”