Knight Frank’s new head of life sciences and innovation is setting out her stall to align the agency’s UK and US activities in the fast-growing sector.
Emma Goodford, previously the firm’s head of national offices, took the new life sciences post last week. An employee of the agency for more than three decades, she will not only focus on activity in the UK, but also work with the agency’s US occupier services partner, Cresa, which has made a name for itself in the life sciences space. “One of my opportunities is to pull together all the capability across the business, and drive that collectively forward,” Goodford tells EG.
Goodford’s role will involve working with Cresa’s US clients that may look to the UK or Europe for new business opportunities, as well as helping UK companies with their domestic and international expansion plans.
“Historically, a lot of small life sciences businesses established themselves here [in the UK] and then went to Boston to expand, because the venture capital business in particular was more evolved there,” Goodford says. “I think a lot of that business now will stay here in the UK. If the UK provides the right facilities in the right locations with the right ecosystem, that business may no longer move to the US in three, four or five years as it goes through growth funding series.”
Goodford’s words will cheer real estate developers keen to ensure the UK bolsters its standing as a life sciences hub. Following news of last week’s tie-up between Canary Wharf Group and Kadans Science Partner, Kadans UK commercial head James Sheppard told EG that London has risked losing industry occupiers because of a lack of suitable space.
Other cities face similar challenges, including Oxford, where the market has been driven by smaller businesses coming out of the university. Such start-ups usually do not commit to long leases as their space requirements change quickly. As such, some firms compromise on accommodation owing to the lack of supply, or rush to prelet sites. Goodford expects real estate players to respond with a new focus on speculative development.
“Occupiers have taken projects on a prelet basis to [secure] very specifically the physical real estate they need and, with that, the laboratory space particular for their industry,” she says. “I think what we’ll probably see now in the life sciences market, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge, is laboratories being developed speculatively for the first time.”
Goodford says the UK must also learn from the US how to better link venture capital with the life sciences industry, particularly in terms of growing early-stage companies – and much of that comes down to physical proximity. “In Boston, there has been a shift of venture capital business to be very closely geographically aligned with the life sciences sector,” she says. “I think that’s very important.”
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