Bionow

New £28m BioInnovation Centre plan for Liverpool unveiled

18 January 2012

It is hoped that the Liverpool Bio Innovation Centre will start the influx of 5,000 scientists and technology experts to work on the fringe of the city centre.

It will sit alongside the planned new £451m Royal Liverpool Hospital - on the old Royal site.

Supporters of the scheme believe it is as vital to the future prosperity of the region as Peel's £5.5bn Liverpool Waters skyscraper scheme to regenerate the city's docklands.

The £28m centre is designed to be the first step towards the creation of a 'BioCampus' that could eventually place Liverpool alongside Boston and Singapore as a leading international centre for Life Sciences.

The five-storey BioInnovation Centre is planned for a site just down the hill from the current Royal Hospital at the junction of Prescot Road and Daulby Street.

It will create 70,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art laboratory space - the equivalant of 23 tennis courts.

And it can be built before the new Royal is ready. If the BioInnovation centre wins planning permission it is expected to open in 2014, two years ahead of the new hospital.

The BioCampus is a partnership between the Royal, the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

The campus would reinforce the Royal's links with the University of Liverpool and drug companies, encouraging innovation and investment.

Chief executive of the Royal Tony Bell said: " This is an exciting and significant moment as the BioInnovation Centre is the catalyst that will enable us to realise the wider vision for BioCampus.

"The key to successful knowledge economies is being able to connect academic and specialist research assets to emerging technologies that have major market potential, which is the Silicon Valley model and it's something that the BioCampus has been designed in clinical environments.

"The new Royal Liverpool University Hospital will provide the opportunity to fully develop the BioCampus." and the development will provide the ability to carry out research in clinical environments."

The city already plays a leading role in researching new treatments for diseases like HIV and cancer, but the campus could help small companies then trial and develop the drugs into finished products - keeping all the investment within the city and creating jobs.

Health bosses said it could lead to the discovery and development of breakthrough drugs to treat some of the world's most devastating diseases. It is hoped that up-and-coming pharmaceutical company RedX Pharma, which is currently based in the nearby MerseyBio incubator base, will become the anchor tenant in the new building.

The company recently won £5.9m from the government's regional growth fund.

At present many companies are successfully based at MerseyBio, but when they need more lab space are forced to leave Liverpool because of a lack of commercial scale space in the city.

RedX Pharma chief executive, Dr Neil Murray said: "The BioCampus is the right development in the right place.

"Our success and growth is undoubtedly to do with where we are, the networks we are involved in, and the knowledge, expertise and innovation that is located within this area.

"This is a unique alignment of assets that can generate enormous prosperity and prestige for the city."

Helen Jackson, director of strategy at the Royal, is leading the project.

She is currently putting together funding for the scheme, which involves a bid for £14m from the European Regional Development Fund.

The scheme partners would be expected to contribute the other £14m.

Work on the BioInnovation Centre could commence in mid-2012 with completion expected by early 2014.

The later phases of the BioCampus would be built in concert with the construction of the new Royal. The whole BioCampus could be completed by 2025, providing employment for 5,000 people.