U.K. life sciences infrastructure gets a boost as London and Cambridge expand

In south London, planners have approved a £1 billion expansion of the London Cancer Hub, creating around 1 million square feet (~93,000 square meters) of additional laboratory and innovation space alongside existing centres such as The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

At the same time, local authorities in Cambridge agreed a land deal linked to up to £3 billion (€3.4bn) in investment to support the long-term expansion of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), Europe’s largest biomedical research site, with plans that could significantly increase its footprint over the coming years.

The investments: London and Cambridge

In London, Sutton Council’s approval, granted on World Cancer Day, allows the extension project, led by investor Aviva Capital Partners with development manager Socius, to proceed to construction. The design includes wet labs, collaborative offices and other amenities aimed at facilitating co-location of academic teams, start-ups and life science companies, with early construction activity expected to start soon.

Supporters of the project say it will expand the Hub’s ability to host translational research in oncology and related fields, while also creating around 3,000 new positions linked directly to the expansion, with the wider Cancer Hub district ultimately supporting significantly more as additional facilities are built and brought into use.

In Cambridge, the Assets and Procurement Committee at Cambridgeshire County Council approved an agreement with developer Prologis UK to advance the next phases of the CBC’s long-term growth on 67 acres (271,139 square meters) of council-owned land.

The decision enables preparatory work to begin on phases three and four of the campus expansion, with the ambition of nearly doubling the size of the site over the next two decades. Phases one and two established the campus’s clinical and academic foundations, including major NHS and university facilities, while phases three and four are planned to deliver new life science research, development, and innovation space to accommodate the campus’s next phase of growth. These stages are expected to deliver up to 2.4 million square feet (~223,000 square meters) of additional research, development, and innovation space, from early-stage ventures to established R&D operations.

Also, a few weeks ago, AstraZeneca submitted plans for a six-storey office and conference building at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, to host around 750 staff. The proposal followed the company’s decision last September to pause a separate £200 million (€230m) research investment in Cambridge.

Why infrastructure is on the U.K.’s agenda

The advancement of the London and Cambridge projects comes as debate has intensified over how the U.K. can sustain its position as a leading life sciences hub, particularly as biotech development becomes more capital- and infrastructure-intensive.

The U.K. remains a leading figure in Europe across several fronts, including venture capital activity and advanced therapy clinical trials, but faces greater challenges in later-stage financing and scale-up. Indeed, the country still accounted for the largest share of advanced therapy trials in Europe and remained the continent’s biggest biotech venture market, even as overall funding levels softened amid broader market pressures.

At the same time, structural constraints risk limiting the U.K.’s ability to retain and grow companies as they mature, including access to late-stage capital, manufacturing capacity, and suitable space for translational and commercial activity. Those concerns have also been echoed at the political level. In a recent opinion piece, U.K. former prime minister Rishi Sunak argued that Britain risks “missing out” on the economic and strategic benefits of biotechnology despite its scientific strengths, pointing to falling equity and venture funding, regulatory barriers, and intensifying competition from China and the U.S.

While projects such as the London Cancer Hub and the expansion of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus do not address every pressure facing the sector, they directly target a bottleneck that has become harder to ignore as biotech programs grow in size, cost, and technical complexity.

For now, they point to a recognition that, in the current biotech cycle, scientific leadership increasingly needs physical space to operate, or risk losing late-stage programs to other biotech ecosystems.