Expansion at campus for life sciences
NEXT STAGE OF RENOWNED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE WILL COST £35M
WORLD leading research and development facilities will be built at Citylabs in the latest expansion of Manchester’s renowned life sciences centre.
Bruntwood Citylabs 4.0, which will cost £35m and will grow the existing campus by 125,000 sq ft, has been given the go-ahead by the city council.
The development is a collaboration with Manchester Science Partnerships (MSP) and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) on behalf of Bruntwood SciTech.
A new building on Hathersage Road will provide seven floors of ‘much needed’ flexible office, research and development and educational provision amid growing demand for workspace.
It will replace MFT’s diabetes centre - which will be relocated - and the St Mary’s Hospital staff car park.
Around 900 jobs will be created by the redevelopment.
Tom Renn, managing director of MSP and Bruntwood, said: “Manchester’s life science sector continues to thrive and continues to make a statement in being the place to be for start ups, scale ups and international companies in the sector to cluster together.
“We can facilitate direct collaboration with the NHS and the ability for companies to accelerate getting their product or service into the healthcare market faster, something truly unique to our city.
“As evidenced by the current global health challenge, there has never been a more urgent time for strengthening and investing in the UK life science sector and so we are extremely pleased that Citylabs 4.0 has had its planning consent approved, and look forward to continuing the creation of a worldleading health innovation hub at the campus.”
Citylabs is based in the Oxford Road Corridor, a 243-hectare area which is also known as Manchester’s ‘Innovation District.’ Following the success of the first Citylabs, plans for a £60m expansion - Citylabs 2.0 and 3.0 - were approved by the council.
The first two centres are currently fully let, with Citylabs 2.0 still under construction and expected to be completed by the end of the year. Work on CityLabs 3.0, which involves the redevelopment of St Mary’s Hospital, has not yet started as there remains a clinical need for onsite IVF services to continue. Professor Neil Hanley, director of research and innovation for MFT, said: “At MFT, we are all rightly proud that the Citylabs approach has brought together NHS, academic and commercial sectors, completely in line with the government’s Life Sciences Industrial Strategy.
“In the current trying circumstances, the importance of continual research and innovation becomes ever more obvious as we strive to make the new discoveries that benefit our patients, the public and UK economy.”
There has never been a more urgent time for strengthening the UK life science sector Tom Renn, MD at MSP and Bruntwood