£800m life sciences cluster opens in London

In a boost for the UK life sciences sector, a new life sciences hub located at Barts Health NHS Trust in London has opened for business, with a planned investment of more than £800 million ($1.05 billion).

The 25-acre Barts Life Sciences Cluster in Whitechapel is being backed by Barts Health and private investment groups BGO, H.I.G. Capital, and Lateral, and is hoping to attract start-ups and established players in the medtech, AI, digital health, and therapeutics categories.

The partners say the draw is the clinical and research infrastructure and expertise offered by Barts Health, including a diverse patient population, a large-scale, proprietary clinical database and real-world testing environments, and academic partners that include Queen Mary University of London and the Royal London Hospital.

When completed, it will offer 5 million sq ft of clinical, research, innovation, and commercial space that will support thousands of jobs and generate GVA (gross value added) of £0.75 billion, around the same as the expansion of London City Airport being sought by the current UK government.

It's the second major new life sciences hub to be announced by an NHS trust in London this year, coming after a £1 billion planning application was filed for a cluster located around the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute for Cancer Research in Sutton.

However, it also comes after MSD abandoned a £1 billion expansion of its UK operations – including a facility already under construction at King's Cross in London – along with shelved plans by other drugmakers, including AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly, that have dented the government's recently announced life sciences plan.

The Barts Health cluster could help to fulfil one key element of that plan, which is to make the UK a leading location to start and scale up new biotech companies. One other positive recent development was the opening of the £150 million Moderna Innovation and Technology Centre (MITC) in Harwell, Oxfordshire, in September.

Commenting on the Barts cluster, Science Minister Lord Patrick Vallance said: "When our £150 billion life sciences sector succeeds, the whole nation's health and wealth are better for it."

He added: "We have ambitious goals for making the UK Europe's leader when it comes to life sciences sector-led investment in R&D, access to scale-up finance, and pulling in foreign direct investment. This new cluster will make a valuable contribution to those efforts, as well as underlining Whitechapel as a key destination for business and innovation."

Barts Health said it has partnered with the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI), the UK's leading health technology trade body, to create new pathways for medtech innovators to work hand-in-hand with clinicians at Barts Health.

It said this will help patients benefit sooner from cutting-edge technologies, while giving the industry real-world insight into adoption and impact.