Mayer Schreiber, CEO of Discovery Park in Kent, one of the UK’s fastest-growing communities of life science business, including Pfizer, Viatris and Concept Life Sciences. He said: “I am delighted by the Chancellor’s announcement of £1.4Billion of funding into the new Global Britain Investment Fund in today’s annual Spending Review, including £354Million for life sciences manufacturing. It is recognition of the UK’s exceptional record in life sciences innovation and of the sector’s potential to further accelerate medical advances, improve lives, create high quality jobs, and boost the economy.
“As the Chancellor said, the pandemic had shown how important innovative research and development is in delivering new, life-saving treatments, and at Discovery Park, we are focussed on enabling life science start-ups to develop and scale on-site.
“Recently we have seen an unprecedented demand for laboratory space. Companies locating with us are enjoying a collaborative community where life sciences businesses can benefit from close proximity to each other. We’ve enjoyed huge growth in the number of new tenants coming to site, and this strong level of demand is set to continue exponentially, supported by our own Reactor Programme for mentoring and developing life sciences businesses.
“We are committed to increasing the amount of manufacturing that takes place on site and, of course, as today’s announcement underlines, manufacturing will be key to capitalising on the exceptional research and development that is happening within the UK’s life sciences sector. At Discovery Park we are well placed to scale up and deliver this. We have a long-term focus on moving start-ups through scale-up and into manufacturing and our 220 acre campus has lab and manufacturing facilities ready to occupy, with land to expand coupled with a thriving scientific community and great business support services.”
