A six-storey research centre designed to combat the deadly global health threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has received planning approval from the Westminster City Council Planning Committee. The Fleming Centre, set to open at Paddington Basin in 2028, will serve as the headquarters of an initiative to fight AMR, the resistance of diseases to antibiotics and other antimicrobials.
Centre Named After Sir Alexander Fleming
The centre is named after Sir Alexander Fleming, the Scottish biologist and pharmacologist who discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928. The Fleming Initiative, a joint partnership between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London, will operate the facility. It will be the first in a planned global network of centres dedicated to tackling AMR.
Public Exhibitions and Facilities
The ground and first floors of the building will feature free public exhibitions. The ground floor, which will retain its current structure, will also include a café and public toilets. A terrace of 19th-century warehouses, known as The Bays, will be repurposed and extended as part of the plans for the ground floor.
Research and Employment
Research facilities, a new laboratory, space for trials, and workshops will be situated across the upper floors. The 33-meter-tall building will also incorporate £250,000 of public art. According to the applicant, the new centre will create over 50 full-time jobs and training pathways.
Amit Muji, Chief Operating Officer at the Fleming Initiative, told the committee: "[The centre] will be key in enabling the initiative to fully play its role to help stem the flow of one of the greatest global health threats of our time. This is a heritage-led proposal, bringing the underused Bay Building back into meaningful public use."
Next Steps and Opening
The planning application will now be referred to the Mayor of London for final sign-off. If secured, the Fleming Centre is due to open its doors in 2028. Lord Darzi, Executive Chair of the Fleming Initiative, said: "Planning permission for the Fleming Centre is a defining moment in our response to one of the great health threats of this century. Almost a hundred years ago, in a modest laboratory at St Mary's, Alexander Fleming opened the antibiotic era. Today, that era is under threat. Antimicrobial resistance already claims more than a million lives a year and risks unwinding a century of medical progress."
He added: "The Fleming Centre is our answer. It will bring scientists, clinicians, patients, policymakers, and the public into the same rooms, asking the important questions – part discovery engine, part public square, part living laboratory. Alongside it, St Mary's will grow into a fully integrated campus where clinical care, research, life sciences, and education sit side by side. That this centre rises on the very ground where penicillin was discovered is not sentiment, it is intent. Where Fleming began, we begin again – this time, with the world watching."
