A US takeover of a UK pharmaceutical company has sparked a major requirement for office and lab space in Cambridge.
Essex-based Argenta Discovery has appointed JLL to find up to 100,000 sq ft of space in the city to facilitate its rapid expansion. The move follows its circa £100m takeover by Charles River in May this year.
Argenta, which was founded in 2000 with backing from Imperial College London, is currently based in 40,000 sq ft at the Spire in Harlow, Essex.
Its requirement, plus another of 30,000 sq ft from Diagnostics for the Real World, which develops tests for infectious diseases, will add to an already chronic supply shortage in Cambridge.
According to Bidwells, there are 1.9m sq ft of live office requirements in the city, but less than 800,000 sq ft of space available.
The agent also found a mismatch in the size of stock available relative to requirements.
Around 60% of the city’s available stock is in spaces of less than 10,000 sq ft, while three-quarters of requirements are for buildings of more than 10,000 sq ft.
“Major biotechnology companies will do whatever they can ?to have a base in Cambridge – even if it means putting up with a long wait for the right space,” said one local agent. “It is ?very important for these firms to be part of a cluster of other world-class companies in the same field.”
Cambridge and the surrounding area is a base for some of ?the world’s leading drug and ?biotechnology companies, and a number of significant prelets have been signed over the past year.
Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company, Takeda, prelet 42,000 sq ft of laboratory space at Development Securities’ Cambridge Science Park in November last year, while AstraZeneca signed for 100,000 sq ft at Cambridge Biomedical Campus in October.
sophia.furber@estatesgazette.com
