We recently attended a Life Sciences conference at the Shard in London – a networking event for the UK’s top Life Sciences professionals, including developers, investors and leaders who are shaping the life sciences environment in the UK.
Aside from allowing us to forge even more valuable connections in this sector, the event provided a broader insight into this rapidly expanding market – on a global scale.
Whilst a high growth area in the UK, it is still relatively small when compared with life science hot spots including Boston USA, which has some 32,000,000 sq ft of labs and innovation buildings. This compares with just 5,000,000 sq ft here in the UK.
Indeed, the global leaders in life sciences are Germany, France, China, Japan and the US, with our (UK) contribution to the global market sitting at just 2%.
With only four of the top 100 Biotech / Life Sciences businesses parented in the UK, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a negative thing. In fact, it represents a huge opportunity for the UK – one which we’ve been alive to for many years now.
However, Brexit and the well-documented economic challenges of recent years haven’t helped life sciences to thrive in the UK.
We no longer have access to many of the benefits of the EU system, such as the centralised procedure for market authorisations (MAs), the EU portal for clinical trials and the Pharmacovigilance database. Meanwhile high interest rates have adversely impact venture capital investment in the UK.
Despite this, we have several notable campuses throughout the UK at Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Stevenage Advanced Therapies Campus, Birmingham Life Sciences Park, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxford, and Porton Science Park and Discovery Park in Sandwich.