There is growing demand for flexible lab space suitable for SMEs in the UK’s life science sector, according to Knight Frank.
A new report from the agency pointed to a lack of “graduation space” between incubator units and full, fixed-term space, highlighting this void as an opportunity for real estate developers and investors.
The emphasis is on “dry labs” used for tasks such as computational modelling and simulation. These require substantial systems in buildings to provide cooling and humidity level controls.
Around 82% of life science businesses in the UK are SMEs, while 55% of digital health firms in the UK are at seed stage.
Many have been spun out of the country’s universities and tend to cluster around them or major hospitals.
According to Knight Frank, Oxford University has had the greatest number of life science companies come from it (75), followed by the University of Cambridge and University College London.
Clusters around such universities are expected to expand as cost-conscious companies look for cheaper accommodation on the fringes.
There is also expected to be more competition for industrial space, with more demand for manufacturing facilities as the UK looks to lead on the next generation of manufacturing processes, Knight Frank said.
The agency’s analysts pointed to the potential for existing campuses and business parks to become “living laboratories” to aide research and development programmes. These would have residents, workers and visitors all agreeing to participate in trials that would provide life science firms with access to real-time data for medical technologies.
Life science companies would also derive advantages from being able to monitor how the environment people are living in impacts their health and from access to participants’ healthcare data.
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