Now is time for bio to go big – as a UK entity, says Bidwells

The life sciences is a lead sector in that success story but real estate adviser Bidwells says the time is ripe for the segment UK-wide to step on the gas and press home its clear advantage. The firm thinks this should be achieved via a UK-wide play.

With 71 per cent of UK spin-outs saying they want to stay and grow in this country, now is the time for the Triangle’s biotech stars to go big, Bidwells adds in a new report: ‘Now is the time to go big to scale the power of UK life science spinouts’ – co-authored by Max Bryan.

In terms of finding a home, over the last decade, 72 per cent of early-stage life sciences funding landed in London, Oxford and Cambridge, despite 57 per cent of spinouts being founded elsewhere, Bidwells says that as the UK leans heavily on US venture capital - especially in tech and life sciences – that dependence could prove a potential liability for its science brand. Hence its call for the sector to up the ante as a nationwide core.

The Bidwells report shows how University spin-outs provide the DNA of life science clusters globally and therefore play an outsized role in local and national economies. Looking specifically at the UK, Bidwells notes that as of January 2025 there were 399 life science spin-outs in the UK all presenting economic potential.

It stresses that there now needs to be a nationwide support and finance network, regardless of where these promising companies are located, as scientific advances are occurring across the country. Barriers to the UK’s national potential need urgently to be broken down, says Bidwells.

The firm reports: “Our superpower status will depend on our ability to operate as a whole with a national vision. It requires us to build inter-regional connectivity that enables integrated innovation ecosystems at the UK plc scale to drive global competitive advantage through deep and effective regional partnerships.”

It notes that University spinouts provide the bedrock of our innovation economy. This is exemplified in Oxford and Cambridge, where science and tech companies are responsible for 80-90 per cent of annual office and lab take-up, it says.

They attract global partners and investors and are catalysts for wider economic development with life sciences to the fore, Bidwells argues. Yet while locations outside of the Oxford, Cambridge and London Triangle produce 57 per cent of life science spinouts, they receive only 28 per cent of the venture capital investment and this uneven geography of opportunity is a loss to the UK economy as a whole as well as regional growth potential, according to Bidwells.

Although Oxford, Cambridge and London account for 30 per cent of the UK’s life science spinouts this geography does not reflect the national distribution of research excellence and reveals a structural concentration in commercialisation activity, says the firm.

Funding and investment is heavily skewed at the startup stage, and since companies are generally sticky geographical imbalances are compounded, it adds.

It further posits that while many spinouts remain close to their founding institutions, decisions to move are often driven by ecosystem strength and funding access.

Mature clusters retain more companies, while others risk losing businesses to more capital-rich environments – yet the life sciences is a global market. So how to capture more market share internationally as IPOs decline and global valuation gaps challenge retention of high-growth firms.

Bidwells says the UK faces a short window of opportunity to align policy, capital and infrastructure. As the most mature life science cluster in the UK, Cambridge provides a valuable insight into the dynamic role of spinout companies in cluster development.

In 2024, companies that started in the city were responsible for 40 per cent of laboratory floor space requirements at the year-end. The majority of these companies originated in some form from the University of Cambridge. This bedrock of the cluster’s science ecosystem is compounded as these businesses grow, says Bidwells.

The impact of this can be seen in the transformation of demand over time, reflected in the high proportion of space take up by the science and technology companies across both Oxford and Cambridge over the last four years, Bidwells says.

It adds that these high growth knowledge intensive sectors now occupy most of the space across the office and laboratory provision and are increasingly reflected in the cities’ industrial markets. Some 40 per cent Cambridge lab floorspace requirements, at end-2024, came from companies originating in Cambridge with a number of spin-off benefits to other areas of the economy.

Bidwells notes that a strong spinout ecosystem also provides a magnet for multinational pharmaceutical and technology companies, who seek to collaborate and potentially absorb innovative advances made by these companies. This is evident in clusters from Oxford and Cambridge in the UK to Boston, MA in the United States, the firm says.

While Oxford, Cambridge and London are responsible for over 43 per cent of spinouts created in the UK this does not reflect the research output of a number of different academic institutions. Whichever way you shake it up, the majority of university cities in the UK are losing out to this regional bias. When UK spin-outs grow and look global they will more often move within the UK with only six per cent venturing abroad, many to the Boston and California clusters in the US, Bidwells says.

Taking everything into consideration now is the time for the UK to take action, the report argues. It says: “We are seeing an acceleration in scientific advances in which the UK holds a leading position due to a long legacy of research advances.

“Our global recognition in areas such as cell, gene and RNA therapies, supported by unique institutes – exemplified by the Wellcome Sanger Institute – are the focus of research activity and funding appeal. These are supported by our DeepTech excellence which will enable advances in emerging scientific areas. However, we cannot be complacent about these strengths.

“Global scientific competition is intense with new research centres are evolving quickly across Asia and beyond. Individually, our clusters do not have the scale of many of these established and emerging centres of excellence. But, working as a country, capitalising on our academic and regional strengths will enable us to compete successfully.

“A window of opportunity to move the superpower needle exists in the UK now. A supportive policy environment is currently converging with a period of enormous advances in scientific areas in which the UK excels. The economic and political backdrop adds urgency to the need to capitalise now on the UK’s scientific superpower potential.

“The threat to this potential from competitor countries across the globe cannot be overstated and the window to secure our global position will be short lived and is narrowing rapidly. This will require a step change in levels of investment across our UK university clusters, which can only be achieved with Government leveraged funding. The prize is elevated long term economic growth and for the Government, increased tax revenues.”

While Real Estate will not be the fundamental driver of this economic transformation it is a facilitator, the Bidwells report contends.

• The report – ‘Now is the time to go big to scale the power of UK life science spinouts’ – can be accessed through the Bidwells website: https://www.bidwells.co.uk/