Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Japanese company, Sosei, has a base at Chesterford Research Park, near Cambridge

 A global giant was set to sign up to move into the region – at Chesterford Research Park, which recently persuaded Pfizer to take 52,000 sq ft of space.

East of England International is meanwhile nurturing a hotlist of global concerns looking to establish bases locally in 2008. These include Life Sciences businesses from America, India, Japan, China and Europe.

Within this burgeoning list of opportunities, arguably the biggest magnet ever devised to establish international giants within the Cambridge bio cluster is being created in the form of the new Cambridge Biomedical Campus on the site of Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

It is being predicted that some of the biggest hitters in the world of healthcare are tilting for the opportunity to establish homes on the campus, keenly aware of the potential payback from being located alongside the cream of the world’s medical brains.

Desire to get alongside facilities such as the world famous MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, is said to be particularly strong. With cancer research world leaders also on the campus site, oncology is one of the major sectors where demand to be close to Cambridge will be paramount.

ERBI, the region’s biotechnology facilitator, is also receiving inquiries from overseas companies keen to find sizeable space in the Cambridge cluster – an appetite that may find a ready answer in new developments at Chesterford Research Park, Granta Park and the Babraham Research campus.

Certainly, this is no time for Europe’s number one biotechnology cluster to show any hint of a faint heart.

Foreign governments continue to pump State funding into their clusters in a bid to catch up with Cambridge, though few can rival the region’s indigenous bio brain power and innovation brilliance.

Dr Jeff Solomon, ERBI‘s chief executive, has been encouraged by the East of England cluster’s ability to absorb foreign investment without any apparent drain on local resources.

Astra Zeneca has forged ahead with growth plans – in terms of property and headcount – at Granta Park at its MedImmune facility, incorporating the former Cambridge Antibody Technology business.

Japanese duo Takeda and Sosei have been faithful to their Cambridge cluster acquisitions while Pfizer has added to its Granta Park presence by taking an additional 52,000 sq ft at Chesterford Research Park.

With Galapagos also pumping resource into BioFocusDPI locally, the vast majority of foreign owners who have bought into the region’s biotech community in recent times have committed to growth and invested accordingly.

Even via the odd reverse, such as UCB’s decision to retreat from Cambridge to its UK corporate headquarters in Slough, there is an opportunity for locally based companies to snap up talented staff.

The Wellcome Trust is pumping seed capital into young Cambridge biotechs so even the investment position is looking up, even though no-one is about to pretend that the IPO window is likely to open up any time soon.

The local cluster has been further boosted by the arrival at Babraham of the first ever Traditional Chinese Medicine company, Xiangxue, to set up in the UK.

Just as stem cell companies are clustering around Babraham, so more TCM-related ventures should be expected.

Jeff Solomon says: “There is much to enthuse about. No-one is about to pretend that all of a sudden there is big money available again for biotech, but sentiment does seem to have changed for the positive.

“Overseas investment into the region’s biotech community through acquisition has been strong and the advent of the new biomedical campus at Addenbrooke’s promises an almighty boost – not least for oncology-related companies, of which there are many locally.

“Our view is that biotechnology continues to be impacted by difficult times in terms of funding but that the sector is thriving in many other ways.”

Certainly other European bio clusters continue to regard Cambridge as the exemplar.

ERBI’s BioPartnering event in early May will see representatives from Berlin and Copenhagen attending to hold a series of exchanges with their East of England counterparts in the pursuit of best practice.

In generic terms, ERBI will not shrink to push a broader message to the world in 2008 as it seeks to demonstrate to global pharma and biotech leaders that the London-Cambridge-Oxford triangle contains all the ingredients any partner could want if seeking to engage with the best biotechnology cluster.

Jeff Solomon said: “The Cambridge brand is extremely powerful when we are promoting biotechnology to a global audience, but when the need arises we will not hesitate in bringing London and Oxford into the mix.

“Individually these are three powerful global brands. Put them together and they are pretty much irresistible anywhere in the world and we shouldn’t shy from using that broader argument when it is relevant to do so.”

ERBI itself is expanding, following its award from EEDA to take over running of the local MedTech cluster with the absorption of Medilink East.

ERBI is moving out of the St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge to new premises within the Meditrina Building at Babraham Research Campus – where the Xiangxue TCM venture has located – and will be installed by February 4.

Its telephone number there will be: +44 (0) 1223 497 400, although its website will remain: www.erbi.co.uk

 

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