Bayer opens Berlin incubator and welcomes first resident

Bayer's network of Co.Lab life sciences incubators has expanded once again with the official opening of a site in Berlin.

It is the first of the company's Co.Labs to be located in Europe and joins incubators already up and running in the US, China, and Japan.

The Berlin-Brandenburg area is a recognised hotspot for the biotech industry in Germany, with one of the largest university hospitals in Europe – Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin – along with 35 pharma companies, more than 300 biotechs, and around 380 medtech and digital health companies located at eight life sciences-focused technology parks.

The first company to take up residence in Bayer Co.Lab Berlin – initially located on the group's pharma headquarters site in the city – is MyoPax GmbH, a start-up specialising in muscle regeneration therapies, which is a spin-off from the Charité - Universitätsmedizin and the nearby Max-Delbrück-Centre for Molecular Medicine.

The aim of incubators is to provide a location for new start-ups without the capital cost of setting up their own lab and office space, with the pharma companies that run them typically providing mentoring and other support that can scale up if their projects gather momentum.

For the pharma companies, it provides an opportunity to get close to new companies and their technologies in the earliest stages, providing an opportunity for partnering later on. Johnson & Johnson runs a similar 'no strings attached' approach with its JLABS network, as do Pfizer, GSK, and AstraZeneca, amongst other big pharma companies.

Juergen Eckhardt, head of business development and licensing at Bayer Pharma, said the new incubator is an "important milestone" for the company's external innovation strategy and will complement other developments in the region, including the planned opening of a Berlin Centre for Gene and Cell Therapies – a joint initiative between Bayer and Charité - Universitätsmedizin that was announced earlier this year.

Construction of the 18,000 sq m 10-story building that will house the centre is due to begin next year and will provide space for 15 to 20 companies with office and laboratory space and, crucially, manufacturing space that will support projects into phase 2 proof-of-concept testing, which Bayer says is a first for an incubator in Europe.

Once it is up and running – sometime from 2028 – Bayer Co.Lab Berlin is expected to relocate into the new building.

Eckhardt said the new hub will be a "launch pad for Europe's top scientists and entrepreneurs and will play a central role in Berlin's life sciences ecosystem."