Plans for a major new laboratory and office space development at Cardiff Edge Science Park have been approved in a boost to the Welsh life sciences sector.
Owners of the 30-acre park, Pioneer Group, will deliver a 54,000 sq ft two-storey building after securing planning consent from Cardiff Council.
Pioneer, which is one of the UK’s largest developers and operators of lab space and acquired Cardiff Edge Science Park in the spring of 2021 from Garrison Barclay Estates, said the building’s flexible design will mean it can be let to one tenant or a number split across several units. It will be marketed across the life sciences spectrum – from start-ups and scale-ups to multinational blue chips.
Pioneer has also secured approval from Cardiff Council for a 10,000 square feet of amenity space, which will provide restaurant, café and flexible meeting and work spaces.
The park on the outskirts of Cardiff currently comprises 180,000 sq ft of life sciences, R&D and office space across seven buildings. Current occupiers including Cytiva, Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board and DEFRA – which has the potential to deliver a further 300,000 sq ft of new lab, office, incubator and GMP (good manufacturing practice) space.
Simon Hoad, director at Pioneer Group, said: “Our expansion plans at Cardiff Edge will ensure crucial capacity for the growth and development of various exciting fields of healthcare – such as genomics, diagnostics and other sub sectors. State-of-the-art designs will introduce flexible layouts that will harness the power of collaboration to drive first-rate research and knowledge outcomes.”
The life sciences industry contributes over £2bn to the Welsh economy each year, while also supporting 12,000 jobs across 260 companies. The med tech sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in Cardiff, where there are 200 companies working in medical diagnostics and devices - most of them SMEs. Between them the companies employ over 8,000 people and have a combined turnover of £1.5bn.
Pioneer Group’s portfolio provides more than four million sq ft of leased office/laboratory and manufacturing space in the UK and Ireland, wich as well as Cardiff include schemes in London, Cambridge, Nottingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin.
Pioneer Group also backs early-stage life science companies with investment from its venture capital funds. Since 2015 it has supported over 80 early-stage ventures which have raised in excess of £200m.
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