As tipped in the Enquirer, the Bloomsbury Research Institute project, strengthens Kier track record as a leading provider of research facilities.

Other recent sector project wins include a £160m specialist bioscience laboratory for Public Health England, a 77,000 sq ft laboratory facility for Newcastle City Council and new offices and laboratory at Cambridge Biomedical Campus for Cambridge Medipark.

The 4-storey Bloomsbury Research Institute, which includes a basement for the extensive support laboratories, will be shoe-horned into a tight inner London site, confined between the back of a terraced Georgian crescent of town houses and the rear of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at 15-17 Tavistock Place.

Work is expected to start in winter 2018 with a scheduled completion date of 2020.

Cliff Thomas, managing director for Kier Construction London, said: “We look forward to delivering this new facility in the heart of London, a city known for groundbreaking medical innovations.”