A very enjoyable afternoon at the Bisnow UK Life Sciences summer event on Thursday 11th July with two very thought-provoking panel discussions (one of which was expertly moderated by my colleague Chris Xitsas!)
It was interesting to hear from experts what the current key criteria are to create a successful life sciences cluster, including: access to teaching hospitals, academia, research institutions, transport links, affordable housing, power (and backup power) supply. The need for investment in wider infrastructure to ensure that players in UK life sciences can thrive is clearly a hot topic and it will be interesting to see what the new Labour government can promise (and deliver) to encourage this.
Some other key takeaways from the event: the influence of AI and data centres on the advances of UK life sciences and tech will be huge; it’s no longer “location location location” but more like “infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure”, with a growing interest in areas outside the golden triangle of London, Cambridge and Oxford; UK life sciences players need space - space to grow into, space to store, space to collaborate; and the main theme of the day was flexibility at all levels, from incubators to developers to landlords to investors, all need to focus on connecting and collaborating to create thriving ecosystems. This is a growing and changing industry and what was important to occupiers even two years ago is different today.