Insight 37 - Magazine - Page 12
LABOUR LAUNCHES LIFE SCIENCES INDUSTRY
STRATEGY AT STEVENAGE BIOSCIENCE CATALYST
TO SEE SCALING UP INNOVATION AND NEXT
GENERATION HEALTHCARE
W
es Streeting, Shadow Health
Minister, and Peter Kyle,
Shadow Science Minister,
launched Labour’s Life Sciences Strategy
at Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC)
and witnessed at first hand how SBC is
scaling up scientific research and using the
latest technologies to revolutionise future
healthcare.
The campus at Gunnels Wood Road hosts
one of GSK’s two main global research
and development facilities, the Cell and
Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing
Centre and Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst,
a leading UK location for start-ups and
established companies to develop and
commercialise cutting edge therapeutics.
This co-location of R&D and manufacturing
facilities is unique within the Golden
Research Triangle of Oxford-CambridgeLondon. This enables companies to
"This co-location
of R&D and
manufacturing facilities
is unique within the
Golden Research
Triangle of OxfordCambridge-London"
move from start-up to scale up and the
commercialisation of potentially lifesaving therapeutics.
In 2020, the Stevenage campus was
awarded Life Sciences Opportunity
Zone status by the Government and
High Potential Opportunity status for its
Lab Hotel Tour with Shadow
Ministers and Plurify 2 Shortlist
12
bIZ4BIZ INSIGHT MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2024
excellence in cell and gene therapy by the
Department for Business and Trade. It is
now a leading life science cluster with a
world-recognised specialism in cell and
gene therapy.(1)
The Shadow Ministers were greeted by
Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst CEO Dr
Sally Ann Forsyth OBE who led them on
a tour of SBC’s facilities. SBC is home to
over 40 companies, which since opening
in 2011, have raised over £3bn in funding,
with Stevenage, a relative newcomer,
now on a par for equity raised on
biotechnology (2017-2020) with the more
established life science clusters of Oxford,
Cambridge, and London.(2)
Early-stage innovation is nurtured at SBC’s
Lab Hotel which provides fledgling startups with rent- free space for six months.
Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle met with the
CEOs of three current Lab Hotel occupiers: