United Kingdom – Stevenage

In August 1946, Stevenage was designated the first New Town under the New Towns Act, one of eight locations around London seen as a solution to London’s post-war housing crisis. The first housing developments were completed in 1950. 76 years later and Stevenage Borough Council has embarked on an ambitious €1.2 billion (£1 billion) 20-year regeneration project to revitalise the town and surrounding areas. The continued growth of the life sciences cluster alongside the aerospace and defence technology sectors will be a key part of the town’s future. Already, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Airbus (aerospace) and MBDA (defence) employ over 5,000 people.Stevenage lies at the heart of the UK Innovation Corridor (www.innovationcorridor.uk), linking the fast-growing science and tech sectors of London and Cambridge. It is easily accessible, located just off the J7 of the A1(M) motorway 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of London and 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the M25 orbital motorway. Cambridge lies to the northeast, with journey times of 50 minutes by car or 42 minutes by train. It benefits from eight trains per hour (peak times) into Central London and is just 19 minutes from King’s Cross / St Pancras International station. Stevenage Borough Council’s claim that three international airports lie within 45 minutes is a little ambitious – realistically, allow an hour for by car to Heathrow. Sporting a town population of c.88,000, Stevenage punches above its weight in hosting the third-largest cell and gene therapy cluster in the world. Home to pharmaceutical giant GSK, its life science credentials grew when it joined the Catapult Network, a group of nine leading technology and innovation centres across 30 locations in the UK.

The Stevenage Life Sciences R&D cluster is centred around the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC - www.stevenagecatalyst.com) which was incorporated as a “non-profit” company in 2010 by GSK and the Wellcome Trust, with significant support from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (now BEIS), the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK) and the East of England Development Agency (EDAA). In 2020, the campus was awarded Life Sciences Opportunity Zone Status by the Office for Life Sciences. Located on the GSK Campus, it is home to the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing Centre (CGTMC), LifeArc, Cytiva and around 40 thriving start-ups. SBC has created a globally recognised cluster for therapeutic research and development that supports and encourages the commercialisation of innovative new medicines.

The SBC campus provides different forms of accommodation across the Lab Hotel, Incubator, Accelerator and Spark buildings and Sycamore House, which is completing in Spring 2022. Here are some more details on each of these:

Lab Hotel offers 99 sq m (1,064 sq ft) of space designed to support up to four early-stage start-ups. This facility provides organisations with 23 sq m (250 sq ft) of rent-free space for six months. Facilities, scientific and business support are provided at no cost. Applicants must be developing therapeutics, require a wet-lab and have pre-series A funding in place.

The Incubator has 2,973 sq m (32,000 sq ft) of space for early-stage ventures providing a mix of lab and office units from 23 sq m (250 sq ft) to 93 sq m (1,000 sq ft).

The Accelerator comprises 3,159 sq m (34,000 sq ft) of larger scale bespoke lab and office space for growing businesses split across three floors.

The Spark Building extends to 941 sq m (10,000 sq ft) of space and opened in December 2019 to accommodate ventures with a focus on cell and gene therapies. This building provides seven lab and office units of 93 to 188 sq m (1,000 to 2,000 sq ft) with shared storage and kitchen / communal areas.

Sycamore House will provide 9,756 sq m (105,000 sq ft) and is due to complete in Spring 2022. SBC and Kadans Science Partner (owned by AXA Investment Managers) are repurposing this building, an existing warehouse previously owned by GSK. Retaining the original industrial features, the building will provide high quality multi-occupied office and laboratory accommodation for start-ups, scale-ups and mature businesses. This multi-tenanted approach is designed to facilitate a collaborative ecosystem within a single building.

In anticipation of growing demand for appropriate space, in July 2021, GSK announced proposals to sell off approximately one-third of its existing 37 ha (92-acre) R&D site in Stevenage with the ambition of creating one of Europe’s largest clusters for biotechnology and early-stage life science organisations. The vision for the new campus has been developed in partnership with SBC, the UK Government, Stevenage Borough Council and the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

The sale of 13 ha (33 acres)1 aspires to unlock €483 million (£400 million) in investment from a private sector developer to construct a new campus, potentially in excess of 111,000 sq m (1.2 million sq ft), with the potential to generate highly skilled employment for 5,000 people. It is a rare largescale development opportunity within the “Golden Triangle” (the life science hubs of Cambridge, London and Oxford). In February 2022, the shortlist of developer/investors was reported to include British Land, Nuveen Real Estate and UBS.

In addition, SBC has an existing agreement with GSK for further expansion on part of the land divestment and will be seeking separate funding for three additional buildings totalling 12,078 sq m (130,000 sq ft). GSK is also considering 27,873 sq m (300,000 sq ft) of expansion space on its retained ownership.

One of the strongest measures of the value-add contribution of SBC to the local and regional economies is illustrated by the success of occupiers in raising levels of equity and grant funding. By November 2021, funds raised by physical and virtual occupiers amounted to €2.8 billion (£2.3 billion). SBC reports that 64 per cent of this investment to November 2021 has been in companies associated with cell and gene research. Data reported for 2017 to 2020 in the SBC report “Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst’s key role in delivering economic benefit from life sciences” places this level of fundraising at least on a par with the Oxford, Cambridge and London clusters.

In further positive news for Stevenage, in November 2021, UBS Asset Management invested €80 million (£66 million) in purchasing the former Marshgate car park. Working with development partner Reef Estates, a 7,525 sq m (81,000 sq ft) European manufacturing headquarters has been pre-let to Autolus Therapeutics on a 20-year lease, to complete in 2023. Autolus specialises in cell therapy and the new facility will be the UK’s first purpose-built CAR T-Cell manufacturing premises.

Dr Sally Ann Forsyth OBE, CEO of SBC, said: “From a standing start in 2012, we have built a thriving cluster of life sciences companies focussed on developing and commercialising cutting edge therapeutics. Today’s report shows that occupiers value the support we give them, that our companies are making a very significant contribution to the UK economy and that that they are attracting exceptional levels of investment to advance therapeutic research and development. This forms the core of our outstanding cluster and ultimately will result in new medicines to improve the quality of people’s lives.”

The current and potential levels of real estate development activity in Stevenage are encouraging and will contribute towards building its critical mass, expertise and attractiveness to occupiers and investors. The successful pre-letting of Sycamore House provides convincing evidence of latent demand within Stevenage and in the wider Golden Triangle and Innovation Corridor areas.