A £170 million biotech science park is planned for the east of England in a bid to boost innovation and inward investment. It will be linked to the Cambridge technology cluster and focused on helping innovative start-ups commercialise their science more effectively. Work will start next year on the first phase at drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline’s Stevenage site, with 25 companies due to move in during the second half of 2011.
GSK is investing £11 million in the first phase. A second phase will create 1,500 jobs and is intended to rival the leading American centres of Boston and North Carolina.
The economic-intelligence centre Insight East reports that the east of England has a higher proportion of people employed in medium and high-tech manufacturing than both US regions.
At the same time, R&D investment is double the EU average, although mostly from the private sector; public-sector funding - £2,000 per business - is half the £3,921 national average.
Steve Sherrat is Confederation of British Industry (CBI) eastern region chairman and chief executive of Cambridge-based BioGroup, which builds plants to compost organic waste.
He believes the east of England, with its knowledge-based university connections and lack of heavy industries, is ideally placed to capitalise on so-called “clean technology” and a growing low-carbon economy.
The company is poised to launch a programme of renewable-energy plants that produce ‘green’ gas from organic waste, and which will increase its turnover from £6 million to £15 million.
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