Kemtile has supported the UK’s leading provider of best-in-class albumin-enabled solutions in its mission to expand a research and manufacturing facility in Nottingham.
Albumedix – based on Mabel Street in the city centre – has been supporting life-science partners in delivering hundreds of millions of clinical and marketed therapeutics across the globe for nearly 30 years. The world’s only USP-NF compliant recombinant human albumin (Recombumin®) was developed on site, with the firm also pioneering drug-enhancing technologies such as Veltis®.
By the turn of 2023, Albumeix’s Nottingham HQ was ready for further expansion.
Two key areas in the facility were left “fallow” following a previous construction project, and the site wanted to utilise this extra space for production expansion.
Kemtile had completed work on this site several years ago, meaning their team was perfectly placed to offer advice and assistance on the scheme and design specification.
Armed with Kemtile’s capabilities, Albumedix recruited the flooring specialists to install new floors and drainage through Scitech, a pharmaceutical design and qualification consultancy specialising in manufacturing, research, emerging technologies and highly regulated industries like biotechnology, life sciences and radiopharmaceutical.
Kemtile collaborated with BLÜCHER who originally supplied the drainage for the areas including gullies, channel extensions and sealed manhole covers and frames.
The project included the installation of 200m2 of heavy duty SBR Co-Polymer screed laid to “falls” and then the installation of Stonshield HRI – supplied in the popular colour, Cranberry that complimented the colour of an existing floor it was marrying up to – the project was completed over six month period and involved working in conjunction with other trades.
Stonhard’s Stonshield HRI is a 5mm thick, epoxy based durable flooring system with a decorative, slip-resistant surface. Its trowelled base layer provides superior impact resistance, being easily applied over rough substrates. The quartz top shield layer also makes for an attractive floor surface that is textured for safety. A matching cove detail was also installed to provide a radiused profile along the wall line to aid cleaning.
Kemtile also installed new tank plinths, cast in concrete to support the new process tanks etc, these were fully rendered with the Stonshield Cove Base material to compliment the flooring installation.
Project lead David Priest stated: “We knew the facility very well having worked on site before, so we were able to give the advice the client wanted and needed with regards to flooring works.
“The project involved a careful and considered approach. Access to the factory was a challenge given its central location and compact dimensions, and once we were in, we had to find a way to raise and extend the existing drainage in one area – modifying and filling in the drainage in another whilst fitting a new manhole cover and frame.
“The floor also needed lifting due to level difference in adjacent rooms where doorways were to be made.”