Plans revealed for London Bridge life sciences hub

Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation (the Foundation) has selected Oxford Properties and Reef Estates Limited as its preferred development partner for the delivery of the Snowsfields Quarter site in central London. Oxford and Reef will invest approximately £350M to create a 27,800m² life sciences hub with world-class lab facilities across three new buildings in a prime health innovation cluster.

The site sits adjacent to the Guy’s campus in south London, which already hosts world-class medical and research institutions including King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust. These, together with the Foundation and local authority partners, form a central part of an emerging partnership, SC1, which aims to create a new health innovation cluster in the capital.

The envisioned project will play a central role in creating the required, and highly-technical, real estate infrastructure to support the emergence of the SC1 innovation cluster. It will add meaningful new supply of lab facilities in London Bridge, a market that is said to suffer from a lack of commercial R&D space, and provide a home for the successful ventures that emanate from the area’s world-renowned research hospitals and institutions.  

Kieron Boyle, CEO at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, said: “We had a fantastic level of interest in Snowsfields Quarter and our long-term vision to contribute to the growing life sciences cluster in our central London home.

“As an investor with a mission to build the foundations of a healthier society, we believe we have found like-minded partners in Oxford and Reef. Their approach and proposals chime with our ambitions to create innovative spaces that support life-enhancing medical advances which improve lives locally and beyond.”