Appeal To Expand Newcastle Life Sciences Centre
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The dominance of London, Oxford and Cambridge in the life sciences field is increasingly being challenged, with a new bid being made this week to boost Newcastle’s status as a hub for this field.
As Business Live reports, Invest Newcastle is taking a delegation to the MIPIM property conference in Cannes to call for further investment to build on the success of the Biosphere at Newcastle Helix.
The Biosphere was launched in 2019 with public funding from Newcastle City Council, adding to the city’s existing Life Centre and providing additional laboratory facilities for the life sciences sector. It is already home to 25 life sciences firms, but could expand further with private sector cash.
Invest Newcastle director Jen Hartley has already said there is a need for new buildings at Newcastle Helix to enable existing firms located there to expand and others to come in.
She explained that the delegation will spend its time at MIPIM “talking with influential investment and real estate delegates from across the world about opportunities that exist in Newcastle and at the same continuing to promote the wider region and its strengths”.
Ms Hartley added that the biosphere has not just provided jobs, but helped keep graduates in the Newcastle area and grown the area’s reputation for life science research, concluding: “Securing private investment will be critical to the growth of the sector.”
Chair of the North East Local Employment Partnership Andrew Moffatt said the life sciences sector is a “major growth area for our economy” and the plan is to use the North East Health, Life Sciences and Medicines Manufacturing Strategy to double both the number of job and businesses the sector provides for the region by 2030.
Should the mission succeed, the life science marketing sector may find it is increasingly aiming to provide equipment for labs based in the north east and away from the traditional centres further south.
It’s not just on Tyneside that the Oxford-Cambridge-London ‘golden triangle’ is being challenged by other regions.
Speaking to Insider Media’s Midlands Health Sector Investment Opportunities online forum, Dr Kath Mackay, director of life sciences at Bruntwood SciTech said the region has a “wealth of opportunities” to offer.
She added: “It’s about telling that story right and being very ambitious about how we see the sector developing in the region.”
Dr Mackay highlighted the £210 million Birmingham Health Innovation Campus Bruntwood SciTech is developing jointly with the University of Birmingham. A ten-year masterplan will see a ten acre campus being developed with 700,000 sq ft of laboratory, office and storage space, as well as providing 10,000 jobs.
“We’re really excited to bring a significant life science campus next to the University of Birmingham and Queen Elizabeth Hospital,” said Dr Mackay.
She is not alone in her optimism about the Midlands. Dr Catherine Beech, chief executive of Exonate, noted that the old pattern of funding only being available in the ‘golden triangle’ is obsolete and the time will come when firms “wouldn’t dream of having their head office in Cambridge instead of Nottingham or Birmingham.”
At present, Exonate does have its main offices in Cambridge. But its labs are in Nottingham and it seems that as the life sciences sector grows and government levelling up policies aim to spread opportunity, its increasing geographical diversification looks assured.