A bid to develop a £210m life sciences campus in Birmingham, which could create 10,000 jobs, has received a new boost.
The Birmingham Health Innovation Campus (BHIC) project has received up to £14m from the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP).
The campus is being delivered through a long-term collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Bruntwood SciTech.
Phase one of the ten-acre development includes a 133,000 sq ft, seven-storey building which will offer lab and office space to companies specialising in medtech, precision medicine and digital healthcare.
The building will also be home to a new innovation centre – the Precision Health Technologies Accelerator (PHTA) – which is the focus of the investment by GBSLEP.
GBSLEP’s investment will support the design and fit-out of the state-of-the-art facilities of the PHTA, which will include a range of incubation suites comprising: wet and dry lab facilities with offices, training, meeting and innovation spaces and a prototyping and small-scale manufacturing suite supporting businesses in the development of their new medical technologies
Professor Tim Jones, University of Birmingham provost and vice-principal, said: “Sitting at the heart of Birmingham Health Partners’ ecosystem, BHIC is a catalyst for the region’s health and life sciences industry and a growing, vibrant cluster.
“GBSLEP’s support and investment will be instrumental in enabling us to develop the core PHTA infrastructure which will facilitate the two specialist centres of excellence within: Birmingham Precision Medicine Centre, and the Medical Technologies Innovation Hub.
“Together, these offerings will provide health and life science businesses with access to Birmingham’s clinical and academic expertise in complex areas such as clinical trials design, regulatory science, multi-omics analysis and medical device evaluation.”
Tim Pile, chair of GBSLEP, added: “The flagship Precision Health Technologies Accelerator (PHTA) has enormous potential to drive healthcare innovation and the development of new health technologies, which represent a huge growth opportunity for our region.
“This has obviously been brought into even sharper focus this year with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Investment in sites like BHIC will be essential to achieving the economic growth needed for a sustainable recovery and fostering cross sectoral collaboration.
“The site will not only provide an immediate injection of jobs for our area, but will secure jobs of the future too.
“GBSLEP are proud to contribute to the development of this exciting campus.
“The innovative new solutions enabled by facilities like PHTA can help address prevalent health burdens not only in our region’s population but the rest of the UK and potentially the wider world, helping to cement Greater Birmingham’s reputation as a leader in innovative health technologies on a global stage.”
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