Plans released for major Birmingham campus expansion

The development of Birmingham Health Innovation Campus (formerly known as Birmingham Life Sciences Park) has taken a major step forward with the announcement of a new long-term partnership between the University of Birmingham and Bruntwood SciTech, a joint venture between Bruntwood and Legal & General.

A £210M, 10-year masterplan will be developed for the Campus, which will provide up to 61,000m² of state-of-the-art lab, office and incubation space acting as a catalyst for the growth of the Midlands’ life sciences sector. It is set to create up to 10,000 new jobs and contribute £400M GVA to the regional economy by 2030.

The first phase of the development includes a new 12,300m² purpose-built, six-storey building which will be home to BHP’s Precision Health Technologies Accelerator (PHTA), providing incubation space, cleanrooms, prototyping and makerspace as well as the Birmingham Precision Medicine Centre and Healthcare Technologies Innovation Hub.

Dr David Hardman, Managing Director, Bruntwood SciTech- Birmingham, said: “This is a huge opportunity for the UK’s life science sector. By creating an environment that will not only help businesses to form, scale, collaborate and grow, we will establish a new thriving life sciences hub, which will create much needed capacity for the West Midlands and help to attract further international investment to the region and beyond.

Professor Tim Jones, University of Birmingham Provost and Vice-Principal, said: “With access to Birmingham’s world-class genomics laboratories, health data programmes, healthcare technology development teams, clinical trials leadership and academic expertise, Birmingham Health Innovation Campus will become the ideal place for innovative health and life sciences businesses to thrive.

Work will begin on an extensive public consultation in the coming months, with the first phase currently set to complete in 2023.