The completion of the project marks a major milestone in the advancement of patient care across the South of England.
As the only facility of its kind in the region, the Trust says it will ‘play a pivotal role in delivering faster and more personalised treatments at scale to patients in the city’.
The pharmacy will supply critical medicines to the hospital and other healthcare providers across the South, with capacity to produce between 600,000 and 800,000 doses annually.
An aseptic (sterile) pharmacy is a specialised facility that uses advanced technology and techniques to prepare ready-to-administer (RtA) medicines in a highly controlled sterile environment. These include chemotherapy, intravenous antibiotics and nutritional therapies.
By centralising the preparation of these treatments, the new hub will significantly expand regional capacity for aseptic products and support initiatives that will enable more patients to receive care in their own homes.
The pharmacy now enters its final testing phase and is expected to begin supplying medicines to patients at UHS within the next month. Following that, and subject to MHRA license approval, the unit is planned to become fully operational in early 2026.
Other key benefits include the production of individualised therapies tailored to specific patient needs, rapid response and supply chain efficiency, and scalable production capacity.
It is also expected to help reduce the time nurses spend preparing medications at the bedside, ensuring more time for direct patient care.
In addition, with a dedicated advanced-therapy suite, it will play a key role in ensuring UHS is at the forefront of gene therapy medicines and clinical trials research.