Proton Partners International has announced a new design partnership for all its future UK projects.

BQ has reported that the agreement is between the subsidiary of Proton Partners International, Rutherford Estates, and DFJ Designs, a consortium of three architectural design companies, Desco, Fairhurst and JDDK, all of which have worked closely with Proton Partners International in the design of its oncology centres in Northumberland, Reading and Liverpool respectively.

Proton Partners International is building four UK oncology centres in total, the first of which has recently opened in Newport, with the other three centres in Northumberland, Reading and Liverpool currently under development. Other UK sites are also under consideration. Each cancer centre will offer proton beam therapy, in addition to conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, traditional radiotherapy, diagnostics, imaging, and wellbeing services. Dedicated supportive care will also be available to patients.

The company’s first centre in Newport is currently offering conventional cancer treatments, with proton beam therapy becoming available next year.

Kevin Turnbull, director of JDDK Architects, said “JDDK Architects are delighted to have been appointed on a long term strategic partnership contract with Proton Partners International. Along with fellow design team partners Fairhurst and Desco, we have now been confirmed as the incumbent team to deliver all future centres for the company across the UK. This announcement follows the successful collaborative working demonstrated on our first two projects in Northumberland and Reading, which are currently progressing well on site and more recently our third project in Liverpool, which is due to commence on site in January 2018.”

Mike Moran, chief executive officer of Proton Partners International, said “We’re really pleased to announce that we have appointed DFJ Designs as our partners. Over the past year, we have been working closely with them on the design of three of our centres and they have an extremely high quality and innovative approach. The patient experience is paramount and the design of our centres plays a central part in that. I therefore look forward to continue working with DFJ Designs in order to make our vision of bringing the best cancer care to more locations across the country a reality.”

Proton Partners International is a Welsh company that was formed following discussions between Professor Karol Sikora, former head of the World Health Organisation’s cancer programme, Professor Sir Chris Evans, the leading life sciences entrepreneur, and Neil Woodford, founding partner of Woodford Investment Management. Institutional and private investors committed to almost £100m equity finance in the company.