Discovery Park aiming to solve life sciences space shortage

Jane Kennedy, Chief Business Officer, explains how the Kent science park could provide the answer to South East’s chronic shortage of lab space.

The shortage of lab space in Oxford, Cambridge and London has been well documented in the press. Many young, growing life science businesses are struggling to secure the lab space to realise their ambitions, but the answer may be just a short train ride away.

There’s a momentum building at Discovery Park in Kent, a 200-acre science park (of which 1.6 million square feet is built space) in Kent, as it seeks to establish itself as a life sciences hub that would expand the reach of the Golden Triangle down to the South East of England.

“Discovery Park marked its ten-year anniversary last year and we’ve really moved things up a gear,” says Jane Kennedy, who is very much at the vanguard of this push since arriving as Chief Business Officer two years ago. “Discovery Park already delivers a Gross Value Added (GVA ) to the local economy of £324 million, but we’re aiming to double that as we build our science and technology cluster. There is so much innovation in scientific activity happening within Kent”.

In building a strategy to create a biotech cluster, Discovery Park has refurbished 35,000 sq ft of high spec laboratory and writeup space, launched a start-up venture fund and is working with corporates already located on the park including Pfizer and global power technology company Cummins, the NHS and Universities based in Kent and beyond to develop a knowledge exchange community on site.

Community

It's clear that creating a community is core to Discovery Park's vision and its relentless networking events calendar is clear evidence of this.

Jane has long been a believer in the value of networking and its ability to "spark" mutually beneficial relationships.

This is a vision, said Jane, which is shared by The Midos Group which owns the Park. "We are valued partners of the companies we support, providing infrastructure, connections and services. We wanted to go beyond the role of the traditional landlord and our CEO had the vision to create the Discovery Park Ventures fund. To date we have invested in seven companies who are able to utilise this small seed funding to leverage greater investment.

"The plan is to grow the fund to £25m within the next three years and support more companies with groundbreaking ideas, as they locate at Discovery Park and add to our innovation cluster.

"We have a real mix of companies moving in. The park is so large it will inevitably become home to a variety of clusters, from oncology to ophthalmology, and neuroscience-related companies."

Transport Links

It is the one-hour transport link with London coupled with a more affordable cost of living that Jane believes adds magnetism to Discovery Park's draw as a life sciences cluster.

She said: "When people think ‘life sciences’ they think Oxford/Cambridge/London and as a Scot we constantly hear the mantra that 70 percent of VC investment goes within 100 miles of the Houses of Parliament.

"But the cost of running a lab in Kent is significantly less than running one in Oxford or Cambridge and from an investor perspective, it's better to see money going into technology development than real estate." said Jane.

"With the new high speed rail link opening at Thanet Parkway next month, we are an hour’s train ride to London. Straight into St Pancras where the Francis Crick Institute, Google, Yahoo and the Digital Catapult are all located.

We’re seeing a rising prevalence of ‘TechBio’, where a new breed of biotech companies is using cutting-edge techniques from data-driven tech and machine learning to transform drug discovery and patient care. I see real opportunity in bringing together the tech community located at Kings Cross and the biotech businesses based at Discovery Park.”

Barclays Eagle Lab

It was a significant driver in Discovery Park’s decision to become the first science park to host a Barclays Eagle Lab.

Jane said: "I wanted to partner with Eagle Labs, to bring them to Discovery Park, because of the fantastic business support they provide which I knew would be of benefit to all of the companies located on the park. But they also operate programmes geared toward tech-based businesses across a number of relevant verticals including healthtech and have an investor readiness programme and ‘demo directory’, where a company can upload a pitch video and be matched with an investor interested in that particular type of technology at the level of investment they’re looking for.”

A Barclays Eagle Lab was officially opened in March and already has an entrepreneurial community building in the co-working space, located at Discovery Park. It runs regular business and social events which also add to the congenial community feel of the wider campus.

“It’s fantastic to see how supportive the companies are; championing each other’s successes” said Jane. “Peer-to-peer learning opportunities are a big part of the experience. It’s great for our founders to feel that they are ‘part of something bigger’ and for them to share their experiences with one another. We have several companies going through the Barclays investor-readiness programme, so in a short space of time they have become a valued addition to the Park and we see the benefit of having them here.”

The Sandwich based site was at one time wholly owned and occupied by Pfizer. There are now more than 150 companies based at Discovery Park, but Pfizer remains very much at the heart of the park's ecosystem and continues to be a major employer in the local area.

Jane explained “Pfizer occupies almost a third of the park and employs around 1,000 people here. The senior management team are supportive partners in our plans to build a science and technology cluster.”

The Sandwich site is integral to Pfizer’s global operations. 85% of all the small molecule products produced by the Pharma giant are touched in some way by the team located at Discovery Park and their scientists play a major role in Discovery Park’s outreach activities to inspire the next generation of scientists in Kent.

“The supply of talent is essential to the long-term success of the site and our skills hub plays an integral part in helping to build the talent pipeline to ensure that the graduates from our local universities - and further afield - see real opportunity in Kent, with a chance to work with companies delivering the groundbreaking discoveries of tomorrow.

"Since the refurbished lab space opened at the turn of the year, we’ve seen incredible demand for the space. We’ve almost fully let the first floor’ said Jane. “Each company adds a different dynamic to the community... I can’t wait to see what the park, the scientific community and this part of Kent looks like five years from now”