Charities invest £4.2m for London biosciences hub
pharmafile | June 11, 2013 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Biochemical Society, London hub, Society for General Microbiology, Society of Biology
A collective of five charitable societies have come together to create a new bioscience hub in central London.
The offices at 107 Grays Inn Road, London, near St. Pancras rail station, have been bought for £4.2 million, an investment that will be used to refurbish the site and become a new biosciences hub.
The purchasers are: the Society of Biology, Biochemical Society, British Ecological Society, the Society for Experimental Biology and the Society for General Microbiology.
The group will occupy the 9,034 sq. ft. office building, creating a central hub to help the biosciences industry and support those working in the sector.
The purchase represents an expansion of the societies’ property portfolio in the capital, as they also own the 18,000 sq. ft. Charles Darwin House, the societies’ headquarters.
When up and running it will based near the London Bioscience Innovation Centres, owned and operated by the Royal Veterinary College, which offers specialist laboratory and office space for biotech firms wanting to work out of the capital.
LBIC is currently home to over 40 biotech and life science companies in London, including small start-ups and more established players.
Both hubs are also in the same vicinity as the Francis Crick Institute, originally the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI), which broke ground in July last year and is set for completion by 2015.
Much like the new hub, the Institute is a partnership between six of the UK’s most successful scientific institutions: the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, The Wellcome Trust, UCL, Imperial College London and King’s College London – and has been established as a charity, focusing on cutting-edge medical research.
Ben Adams
