Property Week quotes Louise Ward on the additional support required by aspiring UK life sciences operators

It has been reported that the UK’s life sciences real estate sector has a bright future after the UK government agreed on a four-year deal to re-join the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme.

The government’s signing last week of an agreement with the EU means UK researchers can now apply for Horizon Europe research funding from a pool of £85bn – a source of grants that UK scientists had benefited from before the country pulled out of the EU more than three years ago.

While this is welcome, Louise Ward, Partner, explains what additional support is needed for businesses in the sector:

"The ongoing lack of supply, particularly for ‘start-up’ and ‘grow-up’ companies, continues to be a major stumbling block to the UK’s ambitions to be a scientific superpower by 2030.

"Traditional real estate developers have taken time to adjust their models away from the long-favoured FRI [full repairing and insuring] lease, backed by a strong covenant, and are only more recently starting to build the much-needed incubators and smaller footprints that aspiring life sciences operators need; but more needs to be done.

"The industry needs to continue to support these fledgling companies by building more small, fully fitted labs and making them available on flexible terms, perhaps with shared equipment and other facilities.

"Only then can those companies grow to be the strong covenant that the market so desires, and in turn provide the much-needed boost to the economy that the government is targeting."

Read the full article in Property Week.