Wellcome has appointed Phil Clark as an executive chair to operate its expanded Genome Campus near Cambridge.
Clark will continue to serve as a non-executive director for several businesses and chair the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ commercial property forum and the Academy of Real Assets.
In his new role, Clark will be responsible for appointing an executive team and board and bringing on board a mix of new occupiers to add to the thriving local scientific community.
The appointment comes as Wellcome is investing heavily in the expansion of its genomics and biodata hub, creating new lab space, homes for campus staff and community amenities such as shops, a leisure centre, and green spaces.
The new facilities are expected to be suitable for a range of occupiers from start-ups and scale-ups to mature organisations, focused on genomics and biodata.
The campus is already a home to the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute, and the BioData Innovation Centre.
The first phase of expansion will span across 315-acre site, with Urban&Civic, which was acquired by Wellcome in 2021, acting as the development manager.
Nick Moakes, chief investment officer at Wellcome, said: “[Clark] is equally commercially minded and determined to create a campus we can be proud of for its contribution to life sciences in the UK. Like us, he believes the route to maximising long-term value is curating a thriving scientific community.
“The campus will be a place where enterprises want to locate and where researchers enjoy working and collaborating in buildings with the benefit of amenities.”
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