Future Cities Forum's 'Science Cities' discussions at Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst
Image: courtesy of Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst
Future Cities Forum is delighted to be hosted by Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst this May for our 'Science Cities and New Towns' discussion event, which will involve contributions from science campus owners, investors, bioscience companies, developers, and government. There will be two panel discussions and a planning workshop.
Questions will be posed on whether the new UK government is supporting innovation in science development with appropriate funding and whether this key sector can help to kick-start our economy in 2025.
There will also be debate around how to encourage science companies to re-locate to UK cities and towns against global competition and how the planning system can be speeded up as part of the attraction for both firms and talent. There will be a particular focus on Stevenage's success in this respect, and the story of how it has encouraged manufacturing as well as maintaining the town as an attractive place to live.
Current changes by the UK government on planning and housing will also be debated and a picture built up through the discussions, across the UK's supercluster of science cities on how proportionate are the demands on councils for new housing, with associated infrastructure.
Above: Dr Sally Anne Forsyth, CEO of Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (Courtesy of the SBC)
The Chief Executive of Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, Dr Sally Ann Forsyth OBE, will be speaking along side Tom Pike, Deputy Chief Executive of Stevenage Borough Council, alongside leading investors, developers, planners and bioscience companies.
Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst was formed through a collaboration between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), GlaxoSmithKline, Wellcome and Innovate UK. This has created a globally recognised cluster for therapeutic research and development that provides support for translation and commercialisation of innovative new medicines. Its continued mission is to create a globally recognised vibrant life science ecosystem that brings together academics and entrepreneurs with growing and established healthcare companies in the spirit of collaboration and partnership. The bustling Campus is home to a range of outstanding organisations including GSK, the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult manufacturing centre, LifeArc, Cytiva and Cryoport. There are over 4,000 employees across the site.
In 2023, the BBC reported that plans for a new 15-building life science campus in Hertfordshire costing £900m had been approved. The campus will provide 1.6 million square feet (148,645 sq m) of space for labs, offices and manufacturing facilities in Stevenage.
The BBC stated:
'Developers UBS Asset Management and Reef Group said the project, named the Elevate Quarter, will be "one of Europe’s largest life science campuses", and claimed it could create up to 5,000 new jobs. The space would also include restaurants, cafes, leisure facilities and three transport hubs providing multi-storey car and bike parking. The buildings would be set around a central green with an interconnecting network of paths and open spaces.
'Stevenage Borough Council’s planning and development committee approved the plans, which would be located alongside drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline's global research and development facility and Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst. The approval follows the company's existing project in Stevenage - the redevelopment of The Forum shopping centre into new manufacturing facilities, which was approved in February.
Piers Slater, joint chief executive of Reef Group, said: "The approval of our new life science campus further cements its position as Europe's leading cluster for advanced therapies.
"Stevenage is ideally positioned to attract world-class talent and the campus will facilitate further collaboration between major multinationals and biotechs. The campus has been designed to allow these life science businesses to grow and scale-up over time and to create an open and accessible environment for both employees and the wider public."
Currently, GSK invests around £1bn in research and development (R&D) in the UK annually with its global R&D hub at Stevenage continuing to be at the heart of the development of our pipeline of vital medicines, with a focus on the immune system, genetics, and advanced technologies.
Stevenage Borough Council's Deputy Chief Executive Tom Pike was asked at Future Cities Forum's September 'Science Cities' discussions hosted by the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, about the town's manufacturing success stories and why these have not been replicated elsewhere in the UK. He said:
'In a place like Stevenage there is land and hunger (for success). In the last two years we have committed two million square feet of space for life sciences development.
'To give you an example we had a approach from a UK company that was spun-out from the UCL Cancer Institute called Autolus Therapeutics that needed space quickly as they built up to a share registration in the USA. The company had the option of taking land in Maryland or in the UK. We saw it as our job to ensure they stayed in the UK as it would mean 400 jobs in Stevenage, as one of the first start ups coming through our location. We sold land in the centre of the town which was a car park. We had a choice to help provide it or lose the opportunity. We accelerated the planning permission for the manufacturing space.
'The company secured consent for planning in three months. They then completed construction on the modular buildings in 17 months, and this is the sort of speed that companies want to see from local authorities. GSK also sold land to UBS Asset Management for development and that firm wanted to see certainty to help them attract tenants, so we accelerated the planning process to help, and we resourced up our teams and also used design panels and more.'
Autolus Therapeutics listed its shares with a successful IPO (Initial Public Offering) on NASDAQ in 2018, raising $160 million. It raised an additional $340 million in 2024.