From June 20th to 22nd a Life Science Study Group from London visited New York City with an aim to foster knowledge exchange and collaboration between the life sciences communities in London and New York City. Builds BIO+ and the London Study Group will publish a White Paper summarizing the key findings from the visit which will be announced in January 2024 together with plans for a New York/ London trip to be held in April 2024. This session will present the state of life sciences in London and offer highlights of the upcoming report.
Speakers:
• Bennett John, Senior Capital Investment Officer, Real Estate, British Consulate General New York
• Faaiza A. Lalji, Director Planning & Development, Precis Advisory
• Georgina Rizik, MBA, Executive Director, SC1 London Life Sciences Innovation District
Now we’re going to turn to an exciting new development that happened uh this year totally unexpectedly we were contacted by a group in London who was interested in coming for a study tour to New York to understand how the New York City Life Science Market has developed over
Time and what role the city has played in the development of that market so from June 20th to the 22nd about 15 professionals from London visited New York to basically Foster an exchange of information and collaboration between the life science communities in London and New York City we had three days of
Meetings uh opened with um a meeting at the Cure where the EDC basically presented the story of how they’ve made such an investment in the Life Sciences economy uh London presented as well as to how their life sciences industry was developing and we had a very good conversation going back and forth we
Then moved over to innolabs in Long Island City had a great tour there um with a broader tour of the surrounding areas and then we did a walking tour up First Avenue through what will be Kips Bay past the the old Public Health Building the Alexander Life Sciences
Development and the NYU new Sciences Center and then we had a session in manhattanville factory district at Tasty uh and also at Midtown West uh the Hudson Research Center um which really helped them understand how the life science clusters in New York City developed all of the information that we
Collected during those visits is now being uh collated into a white paper that will be jointly published between London and New York in January of 2024 um and we are currently planning a trip in April of 2024 for our New York builds bio members to visit London um we
May or may not not have a London chapter developing there but there’s some talk of that happening too so uh it’s quite exciting and we are thrilled this morning to have three speakers from London they’re all virtual Bennett John was going to be with us in person but
Unfortunately he’s contracted coid so he will be also virtual this morning he is the senior capital investment officer for Real Estate from the British culate general ener in New York we have uh fesa LGI director Planning and Development with pry advisory who’s going to talk to us about a very exciting new development
They’re doing at Kings Crossing in London and Georgina rizik uh from SC1 London life sciences Innovation District the first incubator there so welcome you guys thank you all for being with us this morning um um I’m going to be sitting right in front of you so you are
Now facing the audience even though you probably can’t see them uh so Bennett do you want to get started and thank you so much for joining us when you’re not feeling well sure uh thank you so much Nancy um could you hear me just want to make sure
Yes we can hear you and um I really want to apologize for being able to make it in person I uh that’s what I get for going to karaoke bar last week but in any case um I let me just get started by saying uh I think London is certainly a world
Class City same as New York uh there’s certainly a lot of similarities between two locations um most recently when I attend the world city conference actually in the same room which you a sitting in right now they did a ranking of all the world cities and London came
In first and uh don’t be too disappointed guys in New York New York came in third um I think it was based upon uh a couple of different uh categories such as livability so things such as like how wful the city is how how many bike Lanes they are museums connectivity the
Airports things of that nature lovability so culture restaurants shopping attractions and prosperity so areas such as uh the percent of the population will receive high education participates in the labor force GDP per capita and the number of for 500 companies within the area um while I’ve
Been in the role I’ve spoken to several people who were either both developers or investors in life sciences and they’ve all given me some of the same literation for what they believe uh creates a good life sciences cluster and essentially that would be access to to V capital uh having World academic and
Medical institutions good transportation and having an area for individuals and talents to both live work and play and certainly New York and L I believe have both of those exp Bates when when you look at when you look at the life science ecosystem within London I think one of the biggest
Threads clearly is it’s it’s ail it’s Talent AI so London has according to many people the top AI talents in the world and certainly uh this brings not only Investments within within within medicine but also advancments within medical imagery analysis and intelligent document processing sorry um the NHS is also so the
Tremendous resources for Life siiz ecosystem within London obviously the entire UK uh not only with London having an extremely diverse population of over 9.6 million people of which over a third of them come from outside of the UK this clearly makes it a good location to conduct research and and also
Lends itself to more um Health Equity which I will say is something that I’ve spoken to more and more people within the London ecosystem is becoming more and more of a prevalent topic um there certainly is the infrastructure they’re available with 19 of the top 20 Global farmer companies in
The world such as Laris teada uh Gilead M naica all being in London and uh the top 30 by tech companies in the world also all do operate within the UK and I say lastly one of the biggest DRS of the life science ecosystem within London is just a large am of
Collaboration we have between small medum siiz businesses large pharmaceutical companies and the academic communities and that would also include Oxford and cage BRS as well um this also brings about a great Innovations within drug Discovery uh diagnosis testing disease modeling and as we saw during the pandemic certainly uh vaccine development as
Well uh with world class uh research and talents clearly there’s a high demand for lab space within London and the UK um this certainly is highlighted by the fact that if you look at Aus report from as recent as March of this year uh there is an oy there’s a vacancy rate
Of less than 1% for lab space within all of London and now I just want to bring the attention to the map which I think should be sitting behind NY go it’s on the screen sure thank you Dy we going to go over some of the uh inovation districts
Within London uh first first I’ll start off with white s basement districts which is in West which is in West London and a great destination for biotech uh digital and creative Industries it’s in the heart of the Imperial College research campus with lab space and collocation opportunities for companies
At the transition Innovation inhub uh also within WS of there you’ll find within within a walking distance from there you’ll find the headquarters from naris and several other biotch companies um which use the AI automation lab work um it is also the home for a ADC theraputics which is a
Swift oncology focused bi biotech company when you look at uh the Paddington Life Sciences cluster it’s it’s certainly the hold to the Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust and also where tequita and vertex farm for the headquarters along with that you will find a National Institution for Health and Care
Research uh Newcastle in vro diagnosis Cooperative which aims to ensure that there’s R diagnosis as quickly as possible patients and when I spoke to someone who actually works very closely in the district what they told me is that within that area they’re really trying to bring a focus to both Health
Equity and engaging more closely with the community when when producing research as well which I think was certainly something that again I’m finding I’m hearing more and more within L Community uh within a knowledge quarter which is near Kings Cross it’s an innovation Center that’s home to B AI
Deep Mind as well as University College London the Allen touring Institute The cek Institute and welcome trust is it’s very convenient located to a lot of good transportation so if you get through the through the channel to to pass very easily there’s also a rail to Brussels and
Anam and bringing it all together is qk Labs which is an accelerator um programmed by The Click Institute for early stage data Health startups in collaboration with the bars and life Arc uh why last smth Klein Al those opened a hub there and MK is going to have some activity there as well
Which I will leave for later because you’ll hear more about that shortly within White Chapel which is located in East London uh you would also find sorry a district that is very focused on digital health and and data science it’s also the home of genomics England and holds the second largest
Cancer Hub within London as well home to the London air ambulance and an internationally around traum St and with that I believe I’ll pass on to Georgina to speak a little bit about the SC1 District thank you very much Bennett that was Yan’s work we could tell appreciate your presence here today so
FAA tell us about your exciting new announcement and groundbreaking that just happened a couple of weeks ago yeah no thank you thank you so much Nancy and and Bennett that was a great overview um the project I’m going to be speaking about is in the knowledge quarter in King’s cross so Bennett gave
Um a good introduction to the area and I’m sorry that I couldn’t be in person I was actually in New York City yesterday but had to be back in London for a meeting today but wasn’t sorry to miss the end of your October summer so um uh very glad to join you uh
Virtually um yes so so the knowledge quarter really encompasses um an area called King’s cross um the Houston Road and and Bloomsbury and I’ll just say a bit more about it before I speak about our specific project um Bennett mentioned the Francis prick Institute which is a leading um Global Research
Center for for her medical research and Discovery um he also mentioned Google but there are others you know in the kind of cultural and and music space like Universal Music the British Library um University of the Arts London so really the knowledge border is a true kind of innovation District in the sense
That it is home to Life Sciences as well as data science as well as cultural and academic and educational institutions as you can imagine um the area has and continues to attract a lot of interest both from um large organizations um as as well as incubators and startups wanting to be
Proximate to some of these um these these major businesses um the other thing which which Bennett mentioned is really the connectivity so in the center of King’s cross really um are two uh Railway stations called Kings Cross and St panas um and one connects uh the knowledge
Quarter to the rest of of London and and the country and one connects um the other really connects the knowledge quarter to the rest of Europe so being able to have a presence in the knowledge quarter is really meaningful in terms of accessing Talent there but also
Accessing Talent across the rest of the country and across Europe um there’s a huge amount happening they’re nearly 3 million square feet of of activity in the pipeline um I’ll mention a couple of projects the British Library just secured planning for an extension project um which will really bring a
Range of benefits to the local community uh Houston Station submitted a planning application this year which is an over station campus um of Arts and Sciences and St panras hospital just submitted their planning application um which will h house orial which is a world leading um Center for
For ey health so those are just a few few examples um at the planning stage but there are many more projects under construction including our own uh so there’s almost a million square fet under construction and and our project which you can see on the screen um belgrove house will be a specialized
Life Center Life Sciences Center and an office building for Merc MSD so it will be their ukq as well as Discovery Center um it will house 800 of their employees including scientists um and we really focus on research um vaccine development and medicines for diseases of the Aging
Um so we’re super excited about it it will not open for a few years we just broke ground um a couple of weeks ago it will open in 2027 but based on the context that I gave you can imagine that MC MSD were really interested in King’s cross for
Some of the reasons that I that I already mentioned um and even though this was going to be and is going to be their ukq they really s see it as servicing the rest of Europe and and accessing the rest of Europe um and they
Also see it as kind of part of their network of Discovery Centers that already exist so they have a Discovery Center um in Boston which opened 20 years ago they also have a Discovery Center in San Francisco so this would be the third um and their Trifecta where
They imagine scientists will um move across the centers and will do different work in different locations so their Discovery Centers don’t actually have all of the technology and the people that scientists and employees need to do all of their work and as a result employees are forced to travel to the
Other Global centers to work um with the technology and the institutions in those jurisdictions which we really bought into that idea that um science should be Global and that um science should happen in in different places with with different people um so as I mentioned we broke ground on the on
The project last week um King’s cross if you’re not from London is also a very um um highly significant historic um and Heritage area in London both of the stations that I mentioned um are grade one listed which is the highest Heritage listing in the country um it’s also a
Conservation Area called bloombury and so our site given that it’s directly across from the stations and really at the center point of the knowledge quarter came under a lot of scrutiny from an architecture perspective um and and we really wanted to do something that represented and and
The architect hmm LED in this regard we wanted to do something that would represent and be Innovative um today in the same way that the stations when they were designed when they opened were examples of engineering innovation in in their time and so we really took the approach of um focusing on carbon
Reduction um and really whole life carbon where we were looking at Carbon emissions not just during construction but also during operation and refurbishment so that was really the starting point for us from a design perspective um and it filtered through the whole the whole project from the kind of certifications we tried to
Achieve and the levels of reduction as well as um our waste strategy so um that was really the heart the heart of the the design um and attached to that was this idea of a kind of long life loose fit um building that met the needs of
Merc MSD but also um could stand the test of time as we are long-term owners and and occupiers and really stand and and laugh beond on their 20year lease to last 100 years um and so we really looked at um you know the floor to floor Heights and the vibration resistance and
The structural grid and the public infrastructure and public realm um and amenity space in the building as well um the Third Kind of um pillar I would say in terms of our thinking alongside kind of Heritage and sustainability was really the approach to the various publics of the the
Building um you know the knowledge quarter is also home to many local communities that have lived there for Generations um and lots of young people and and lots of schools and and lots of people that you know um are are not kind of um supported in in the way that they
They should be and so Kon the local Authority has really been focused on that and really pushed us to make the building um for for these various public as well and so in front of the building on the Houston Road we reincorporated a station entrance um that was accessible
We created an exhibition space um to highlight and make available the work of MSD to the public and then at the rear of the building we’ve designed an education center and classroom um where 50% of Camden schools are already signed up to have high school students involved
In in those programs as well as a cafe for the local community and an auditorium for for other institutions based in the knowledge quarter wanting to collaborate with MK MSD so if you if I turn your attention to the slides on the screen perhaps we can just flip
Through to the to the first slide um and I could just show you quickly the things that I’ve been referring to fa I think they’ve been flipping through as you’ve been speaking Yeah so uh I I’ll just okay great we can we can start here this
Is perfect this is the first slide um so very quickly you can see the kind of lab floors on Floors one to three with the large public facing Windows where you can see activity through you can see the upper office floors that have this kind of um double uh this biophilic facade
With a a zone for planting that really shows that the building is about um Greening and about sustainable thinking and then the collaboration Zone in between Flo is 1 to three and Floors 4 to9 and then on the ground floor you can see the tube entrance on the corner as
Well as the public entrance so if you go to the next slide um this really shows the the double skin and the biophilic facade which can be viewed from a distance next slide um some of the amenity in the building and the ter facing the station a side view of the
Labs interior view of the labs overlooking the stations uh reincorporated station entrance exhibition space facing the Houston Road to the front of the building and then education center class classroom and and Auditorium follow great thank you so much so that that should give you a good overview of
The project it’s hard to share everything um about the project and the journey we’ve taken but I’m I’d be happy to answer any questions well congratulations that’s a very exciting project let’s just move on to Georgina and we’ll wait for questions at the end so Georgina you want to tell us about
The SC1 Life Sciences Innovation District yeah thank you very much for the opportunity uh really enjoyed the visit June to New York City where I really thought there was many opportunities for collaborations with New York next slide please um just briefly about our district um in South Central London we
Are trying to build a truly Global Life Sciences Innovation District in South Central London um um what’s very unique I’m going to briefly go over this uh in the next few slides is we have a partnership model with seven active M Partners can you go back please Georgine
If you could lean in toward your mic we’re having a little trouble hearing you sure we’ve got um uh four strategic that we’re going to execute on equally relevant for this gr three ination that I will speak on but I think what really makes our district unique is mission of
Not only Innovation but also optimizing Health Equity um for those of you who don’t know South Central London we have the two borrows of lth and sou uh arguably located in some of the most iconic parts of South Central London but we do have a diverse patient population with significant Health equalities we’re
Really trying to positively impact next slide please we’re still having a little trouble hearing you um not sure what to do is that that’s clear right now but when when you’re going in and out for some reason I’ll uh try to not move in terms of our partnership model we are based
Out of KS College a great University in London I think what makes our ecosystem special is the connectivity to three incredible academic teacher hospitals which we call in London here NHS trust that in St Thomas the Kings College Hospital and the South London and Mosley uh Kings College London and Trust form
What we call the Kings Health chers as I mentioned we have back engagement of our two local government borrows Souther and L and last but certainly not least our land owner Li in St Thomas’s Foundation next slide please um we are trying to execute four strategic pillars one is becoming the
Goto ecosystem for entrepreneurs and founders and making sure we have the right space accelerators incubators and servicing services to support them along the entrepreneurial Journey equally important is our transformative partnership strategy with big F and big Tech along the streams where we have academic clinical leadership that is mental health and Neuroscience oncology
Respiratory and cardiovascular we have an employment in skill strategy to make sure that the people within our borus ultimately get those great jobs in life sciences and then I think what would be relevant to this group is we have an incredible State strategy next slide please when we think about our district
We are arguably located in what I consider the best parts of London um we have our biomedical Hub around the London Bridge campus which has leadership in cancer genomics and targeted Therapeutics if you go over to West Minister Bridge uh we’ve got met C with leadership also in cardiovascular
And resp disease and Ai and last but certainly not least we also have our Denmark Hill Campus which is known as our mind and body Hub with leadership at a global standing in terms of Neuroscience and mental health next slide please each of these hubs in the
Interest of time I will not be able to go into but we have academic institutions clinical institutions we’ve had incredible spin outs we have offerings we get to really really support what we envision to be critical to solve HS which is public private Partnerships so that is available every single Hub next slide
Please when we reflect on the spaces available to us um very excited to talk about the Lyon Institute for healthcare engineering which will go live very soon along Westminister this will be the gold standard in terms of the intersection of Academia the hospital system as well as
The private SE C in terms of taking M Tech Technologies from inception to commercialization so really a great example of what that partnership looks like um and what Minister Bridge we also have the Royal development if you reflect back on bridge we have a huge development quarter about 350,000 square
Feet dry one lab space and office space to really again Foster that collaboration with the university our academics for clins and that NHS trust really Foster that the same with Denmark where by the end of the year we will have Center for young people with mental health so
Hopefully what you’ve seen from my presentation is our ecosystem is really anchored around a great University uh great academic teaching hospitals a phenomenal location uh that really Foster connectivity and of course cultural icons of London whether it’s the parliament buildings whether it’s the shark whether it’s London Bridge Westminister Bridge um and equally
Important we have the support of our morals and really the engagement of the community to really make our we of ination Health Equity reality over the next few years um thank you for your interest and happy to take any questions or share the slides thanks Georgina we’re having a
Little bit of a technology challenge this morning but I think what you can see is that there are real similari ities between the way that London is developing and the way that New York is developing uh and lots of areas for collaboration between the academic institutions that are doing science
Together uh many of the companies that uh have been started in New York actually list on the London Stock Exchange before they list on NASDAQ uh so the the financial sectors is a very important uh part of the collaboration as well um and then learning from each other in terms of uh
The way that the um different clusters are developing and making connections between those clusters for the cross Atlantic uh Partnerships and collaborations I think present some really interesting opportunities does anybody have any questions that they would like to pose to our panelists and this morning very quiet crowd this
Morning Scott let me call on you uh can you just maybe talk a little bit about some of the collaboration opportunities you might see with manhattanville factory district and some of the work that’s going on in London sure so so parp thanks Nancy um we were pleased to
Participate in the in the exchange uh during the London study tour and and um not only found it very interesting but obviously a lot of the um the companies that everyone spoke about in London are important companies to New York City and the New York City um greater region um
But it also gave an opportunity to personally get to know uh fasia and and uh um I’m looking forward to going over to London with your group and and learning about these really interesting projects and I think a lot of the challenges that we have in New York City
Are similar things that that London is dealing with and and I think uh I think the interchange is going to be really really important and you know it’s important to us and and I think uh your connecting the two cities is terrific great thank you so much so we
Will be visiting London but we’ll also V be visiting Oxford and Cambridge and maybe stevenage which is a um developing cellen gene therapy Hub which is kind of in the middle of this Golden Triangle in the United Kingdom so stay tuned uh early next year for more information
About that and for the release of the research report in white paper that we’ll be doing on the study tour we had in June so thank you to our speakers really appreciate your presence here today uh and we’re looking forward to seeing you again soon all right thank you thank you so
Much thank you thank [Applause] you