STEVENAGE, England– An independent report has been released today by Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) that demonstrates its key role in delivering economic benefit from life sciences research and innovation in the UK.
SBC was formed in 2012 through a collaboration between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), GlaxoSmithKline, Wellcome and Innovate UK. Located on the GSK Campus in Stevenage, it is home to the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing Centre, LifeArc, Cytiva and around 40 thriving start-ups.
Entitled ‘Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst’s key role in delivering economic benefit from life sciences’, the report finds that SBC has supported not only early innovation but also scale-up businesses across the life sciences value chain, delivering an outstanding contribution to the UK economy.
Science, Research and Innovation Minister George Freeman said, “High-tech, high-skilled jobs in the life sciences sector are vital to both the UK becoming an Innovation Nation – growing clusters of opportunity for all, like Stevenage – as well as the UK playing a crucial role in solving some of the world’s biggest challenges. The excellent work being done at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst is a perfect example of the kind of public / private partnership cluster we need to see across the whole of the UK. I hope it will inspire other clusters in other parts of the country to similar growth and productivity in the years ahead as we develop our high skill Innovation Nation economy of the future.”
Key points from the report:
- Companies are attracted to SBC because of its central location, access to specialist facilities, mentors and funding at all stages of growth.
- Economic impact of SBC support is highly significant both at the local and national level delivering a GVA of £87m p.a. to the UK.
- Potential to deliver 5x increase in economic impact over the next 20 years creating 4,500 jobs and a cumulative net GVA of £740m.
- Companies have attracted over £2.3bn in finance whilst at SBC with levels of private equity investment now comparable to Cambridge, Oxford and London.
- Findings underline the contribution of the Stevenage cluster, with its key strength in cell and gene therapy, to deliver therapeutic treatments that improve the health and quality of people’s lives.
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.”
