A competition for the unit at the hospital’s London Bridge site was launched in February and is being mastermind by architecture body RIBA.

The scheme has attracted the interest of a number of leading architects including Stirling Prize winners Richard Rogers and Norman Foster as well as 2012 aquatics centre designer Zaha Hadid.

The competition brief asked for interested teams to include a contractor, architect and engineer when expressing interest, the deadline for which closed at the end of last month.

Now the nine will be grilled by the client, Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust, before being quickly whittled down to a final shortlist of up to six consortia.

The nine bidders are: Mace, Bovis Lend Lease, Balfour Beatty, which has linked up with Zaha Hadid, Skanska, Vinci, which has teamed up with Foster & Partners, Brookfield, Shepherd, Kier and Laing O’Rourke which has joined forces with Rogers Stirk Harbour.

The surprise omission is Sir Robert McAlpine which had got on board with another star architect, Rafael Vinoly – the practice behind the stalled ‘Walkie Talkie’ building in the City of London.

But the heavyweight pair failed to make the final cut and one source told the Enquirer: “I don’t think these two have really worked together before and there’s no doubt the interview will centre quite heavily on partnering.”

A winner for the 19,000 sq m centre will be named during the summer.