The UK has a rich life sciences heritage as one of the leading hubs for the development, manufacture and supply of medicines and devices globally. In 2020, the sector had an annual turnover of £89 billion and directly employed 286,000 people across the country in more than 6,000 businesses. 85% of these businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises which created 50% of the jobs outside of London.

The UK remains an attractive country for inward investment by venture capitalists and private equity companies owing to its strong contribution to basic science from institutions like the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and University College London, among others.

But translating this science into products that are safe and effective is a long and expensive process. As medical technologies advance, nearly every nation is faced with the problem of capturing this science in a timely fashion. This is also true for planetary health where industrial biotechnology is playing an increasingly important role.

Innovation Drive

Innovations in human and planetary health are increasingly being driven by small, start-up companies created by university professors, serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others. Whatever their origins, these companies require a supportive business environment, skilled staff, and flexible office, laboratory and manufacturing space to succeed.

These features are often combined in a business incubator of which many examples exist across Europe. Our enterprise, the Pioneer Group, which is exclusive to the UK, brings venture finance and company creation together with a modular laboratory space offering. This combines laboratories for start-up companies with facilities

Since 2015, the Pioneer Group has assisted more than 100 ventures through its programmes including spin-outs from over 30 UK universities. These ventures have subsequently raised over £300 million in follow-on investment to date.

Direct Investment & Physical Locations

Some of these companies have raised investment directly from Pioneer including BioAscent, a contract research organisation for integrated drug discovery, NanoSyrinx, a therapeutics company developing intracellular drug delivery, and Deep Branch, an industrial biotechnology company developing a carbon recycling process for sustainable agriculture. Companies have also taken advantage of Pioneer’s physical locations for their lab operations.

These include BDD Pharma, a drug formulation company supporting drug development and clinical testing; NuVision Biotherapies, a medtech company developing innovative therapies for ocular surface disease and NovoSound, an ultrasound sensor company developing innovative solutions to medical ultrasound.

Pioneer’s physical locations span the UK. Quite a few sites have unique histories. For example, BioCity Nottingham, which is located in the East Midlands, was set up in 2003 with laboratories and office space gifted to the Nottingham Trent University by the German chemical company BASF.

In turn, Nottingham Trent University, along with the University of Nottingham and the East Midlands Development Agency, established BioCity Nottingham. Today it is the UK’s largest bioscience incubation centre. Pioneer’s sites are also located in Glasgow, Cardiff and Edinburgh. Altogether, there are nine fully integrated parks hosting over 300 businesses

Collaboration

Collaborations are a feature of Pioneer’s activities. In 2021, the group entered a partnership with Innovate UK, a government agency, to support new spin-out companies. The goal was to help company founders build models for their businesses and unlock equity investment. The support lasted for 12 months and assisted enterprises with new technologies for organ transplantation, glucose monitoring, protein polymer creation, and vaccine discovery.

Golden Ticket

In 2022, the group scaled up its collaborations to negotiate Golden Ticket partnerships with Astellas Pharma Inc and AbbVie Inc, giving them exposure to UK scientists creating breakthrough biotech start- ups. Start-up founders gained access to laboratory space for 12 months to develop their technologies through a no-strings attached sponsorship by large pharma. In turn, the pharma partners gained access to novel biotech start- ups from across the UK.