Green shoots for Life Sciences (and Technology) Real Estate in Cambridge
After a difficult 2025, investors in and developers of life sciences real estate have reason to cheer in 2026 as the Cambridge market turns back to more favourable times, with the emergence of a number of good news development stories.
In October, Brockton Everlast received consent for their Fenway development at the Cambridge Science Park, creating 250,000 square feet of new build facilities aimed at life sciences and technology companies, in keeping with the existing occupier mix at the science park. Then, in December, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government gave Railpen’s proposed redevelopment of the Beehive Centre the go-ahead. Currently a retail park, Railpen plans to transform the estate into an innovation campus, spanning research and development and the technology sector, alongside retail and leisure space to service the occupants of the estate.
Elsewhere the Wellcome Genome Campus secured planning permission to deliver two labs, spanning 215,278 square feet at the Campus and more recently has selected a professional team to develop a masterplan for the expansion of their campus from 125 to 440 acres. The first phase of this expansion would add 180,000 square feet of lab space, alongside homes and community amenities. In occupier news, AstraZeneca has just submitted a planning application for a new six-storey facility adjacent to their existing and under development spaces on the Cambridge BioMedical Campus, solidifying Cambridge as the long term home of AZ. The BioMedical Campus will shortly welcome the opening of a new railway station, Cambridge South, which will provide new connectivity to both central Cambridge and to London, making the Campus ever more attractive to occupiers.
Whilst it remains to be seen how much building work will actually commence under these various planning consents, particularly if that is speculative, the commitment of these companies to expending funds to advance their expansion plans shows the return of confidence to the sector and will likely provide a broader choice to occupiers. There is, too, growing evidence (as can be seen in the above examples) of the diversification of the occupier mix on science parks with data suggesting that alongside the traditional “life science/ R&D” tenants, new technology companies, particularly in the AI space are also interested in being part of these innovation clusters. Developers are certainly pitching their projects at both science and technology now and we may well see a pivot where the traditional “science park” becomes a science and technology park. But what is clear is that Cambridge remains popular and well positioned at the forefront of the science (and technology) sectors for the foreseeable future.
