When Dutch laboratory investor Kadans chose Manchester for his next scientific campus, the company has had two opportunities in sight.
One was a simple commercial reality, explains James Sheppard, international manager of the company's commercial strategy. “Basically, what we saw in Manchester was a classic imbalance in supply and demand,” he said about life science companies that wanted to settle or develop in the city.
“We have seen many large companies, small and large, looking for space.” The other reason, he adds, was undoubtedly “more interesting”.
Manchester's scientific research – innovation in global renowned institutions such as Christie Cancer Hospital to sparkling spinuts and start -ups on the Oxford Road corridor connecting its universities – is “of a quality that would correspond all over the world”, explains Sheppard.
“What has really enthusiastic about us is the emphasis on the demonstration of the impact of science – the desire and the ability to create new businesses.”
Manchester and North West of England have a history dating from decades of marketing of life sciences. But 12 years ago, this ecosystem had a hard blow when the Pharmaceutical group Astrazeneca decided to move its historic headquarters from the north of Alderley de Cheshire park, 30 km south of Manchester, in Cambridge.
“Many people thought that (this) would be the death knell for the Life Sciences Fluk in the region,” admits John Holden, associate vice-president of the main special projects at the University of Manchester. “But in fact, it continued to grow.”
The number of life science companies in the North West increased more than double the national rate between 2016 and 2021, according to The Office for National Statistics, with more than a third of those of the Grand Manchester.
Alderley Park now houses more than 200 scientific companies, while inter -sector partnerships around the universities of Manchester and the adjacent NHS Trust – the largest in England – also pay dividends.
The search for the growth flag of analysts placed Manchester Third after London and Birmingham for new companies in the health sector in the past 12 months, identifying a particularly strong growth potential between companies in biotechnological research and development and the manufacture of medical instruments.
“The development of the start-up side of SMEs at an early stage has been substantial,” explains Holden, adding that it is “partly a function” of how the life sciences and the pharmaceutical sectors have changed.
“Companies do much less R&D internally and buy R&D via start-up businesses,” he explains. “So there are a lot of broths that are broken by one of the companies once they have proven their technology.”
Before Kadans identified opportunities in the city, the real estate developer based in Manchester, Bruntwood, had already started to focus on the laboratory space. Bruntwood Scitech, the developer's joint venture with the Legal & General financial group and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, is about to open Citylabs 4.0, the last phase of its scientific pipeline around Oxford Road. In 2014, he took over Alderley d'Astrazeneca park.
“What we inherited effectively, there were 2,500 scientists who did not go to Cambridge, many of whom wanted to create their own companies and incredible facilities,” explains Chris Oglesby, managing director of Bruntwood Scitech. “What we have seen in parallel, given the strength of historical grouping in Cheshire, is then the growth of the sector in Manchester.”
This has been helped by the accent put by the city on the retention of graduates in recent years, because the city center – only populated as a residential area in the 1990s – underwent a transformation in the 21st century.
Julia Buckler began her scientific career at DXS Price, a spin-out astrazeneca diagnostics based near the University of Manchester. In 2009, he was bought by the German multinational Qiaigen and Buckler now directs the molecular diagnostic tests of the company.
The sharing of knowledge and the availability of graduates that the proximity of the NHS and universities allows “means that you can not only survive, but more and more, because there is always this growth potential,” she says.
“This group of companies with a similar area really accelerates each of us.” The company has hired directly from the University of Manchester, where for a few years, it has helped to take a biomedical course.
Now being branched out from oncology, the Qiaigen Manchester base is developing a cartridge -based device to identify the gene marker of Alzheimer's disease, which could possibly be used by clinicians to make on -site treatment decisions.
Buckler, Holden and Oglesby all argue that such an ecosystem of life sciences is complementary to that of Cambridge, rather than competition with it. During the past year, the two cities, led by their universities, have set up a partnership aimed at presenting a joint innovation opportunity, including life sciences, interior investors and entrepreneurs.
Holden says that the cheaper cost of Living of Manchester, the less overloaded infrastructure and its attraction for young graduates can provide a reciprocal offer to the high value R&D expertise of the traditional “gold triangle” in London, Oxford and Cambridge. Kadans already has a laboratory space in Cambridge, but will add to the Manchester ecosystem with more than 200,000 square feet of new laboratory space.
Sheppard notes that Manchester is “not perfect”. Despite funds such as Northern Grimstone, the investment platform created by the universities of Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds specifically for innovation spinuts, the city lacks venture capital, he says.
“A building in London will probably have more VC funds than the Manchester set,” he adds. Build this architecture “will take time”.
Nevertheless, the Manchester life science cluster rebounded and evolved after the departure of Astrazeneca, known as Sheppard. Its potential tenants range from “several billion global pharmaceutical books by examining a very specific R&D to local businesses”.
Sheppard is appropriate that Manchester must sell as a competitor with international cities, rather than its counterparts in the United Kingdom. “The statistic that has always stuck me, when we crossed our internal investment committee process, was that we saw more demand in Manchester in the fourth quarter of last year than in Madrid-and that we saw in Berlin,” he adds.
“These are major scientific markets and Manchester outperform them. This is what really excited us about the city. ”
