BioCity has been bought in a £120 million deal, said to have created the 海角视频’s biggest life sciences business park group.
US real estate investment firm Harrison Street and 海角视频 real estate collective Trinity Investment Management have joined forces to buy the science incubator and business unit group.
It is being merged with Knowledge Factory – Trinity’s innovation focussed real estate business – to create a new business called the We Are Pioneer Group.
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BioCity currently has more than 200 companies based at its main sites in Nottingham, Cardiff and Glasgow and in Cheshire, Aberdeen and Newcastle.
As well as offering traditional landlord services it provides things such as coaching, flexible lab and office space and PAYG services as well as investment in life science businesses.
Over the years BioCity has invested in 29 early-stage companies, using funds from its own cash reserves and from a joint venture with AstraZeneca which BioCity manages.
It was founded in 2002 by the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University, in a former BASF Pharma research facility in Nottingham city centre.
In 2012 it acquired a research site in Newhouse near Glasgow, where it set up Glasgow BioCity, followed by a second site in Nottingham called MediCity, which is a partnership with Walgreens Boots Alliance located on the Boots campus.
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Five years ago the Newhouse site expanded to create Glasgow, MediCity.
The broader We Are Pioneer Group will manage some 2.6 million sq ft of life science space while expanding its investment in early-stage firms and promoting tech transfer with universities, the NHS, the government and major pharmaceutical companies.
It will support more than 500 tenants through early-stage venture capital investment and accelerator programmes.
In all the JV is acquiring 12 properties comprising 488,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art science parks.
Harrison Street hopes the deal will mirror the evolution of the life sciences sector in North America, where it is has invested more than $2.1 billion.
A spokesman said: “This ambitious new company will offer life sciences businesses an ecosystem designed to accelerate their growth, enabling them to tap into the expertise and network of other global businesses.
“In the US it is commonplace for real estate investors to directly manage labs, but rare in Europe.
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“Through a national network and with an expanding programme of accelerators, We Are Pioneer Group now aims to be the 海角视频’s leading hub for science and innovation.
Paul Bashir, chief executive of Harrison Street’s European business, said: “The pandemic has put life sciences facilities on the global stage, yet the 海角视频 has a distinct supply-demand imbalance that is prohibiting this sector from truly flourishing.
“Our track record in life sciences across North America has taught us many valuable lessons about the value of creating ecosystems and the premium investors can derive from carefully aligning operational asset management with investment.”
Richard O’Boyle, executive director at Trinity, said: “Life sciences is a truly unique part of the real estate universe that requires intensive management and requires considerable networks to connect and support our tenants.
“Building meaningful links to academics, researchers, governments and pharmaceutical firms is critical for their success—and ours.
“Through the acquisition of BioCity, the new company will not only invest in real estate, but support tech transfer and accelerator programmes, with a scaleable ecosystem linking key universities, public bodies and the NHS with VC investment and many global partners.
“We Are Pioneer Group is the logical next step for our partnership with Harrison Street and it gives them a fully-integrated European life sciences platform to rival the scale of what the US has to offer.
“Many look to Boston, Massachusetts for how to accelerate early-stage life science businesses, but the reality is that it is impossible to replicate something that has been embedded for forty years.
“Similarly, BioCity’s 20-year track record in support life science businesses will be critical to power our next steps.
“For investors, the JV will be better positioned to add scale and identify additional leasing opportunities with leading universities and pharmaceutical businesses.”