BioCity sold in £120m deal
BioCity, the Nottingham-based life sciences hub, has been sold to a new joint venture in a £120m deal.
Harrison Street and Trinity have come together to form the We are Pioneer Group – a new company borne from the merger of BioCity and Knowledge Factory.
The new company will have a portfolio of 2.6m sq ft of laboratories and be home to over 500 tenants.
BioCity’s CEO, Toby Reid, says: “The aims for our business are the same as those within our Collective. To scale a promising venture into commercial success and continually develop that business to realise its full potential and achieve the funding goal. It is with immense pride that today we announce our next step along that path.
“We have bootstrapped our way from ‘probable white elephant’, as labelled by the Financial Times in 2003, to ‘successful lab experiment’ (FT 2008), to ‘one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies’ (FT 1000 report 2017) and now one of the most replicated business models within our industry. What we have achieved is incredible, but that is not to say it has been easy.
“As a team, we can attest to the hard work behind the scenes in making that vision a reality. So, while we will soon be looking to the future, I want to take a moment to reflect on what we have achieved. I am immensely proud of all that we have built together.
“This is by no means the end of our hard work. Our public/corporate identity and email addresses will change, but who we are, what we are trying to achieve and most importantly, why, remains the same. To provide a home to the curious and help pioneering science ventures to make it out of the lab and into the world, to tackle the biggest global health and environmental challenges.”
Paul Bashir, chief executive officer of Harrison Street’s European business, said: “The pandemic has put life sciences facilities on the global stage, yet the UK has a distinct supply-demand imbalance that is prohibiting this sector from truly flourishing. Creating the first nationwide, vertically-integrated platform gives us the scale and skills to make a real positive impact, working not just with exciting biotech firms but with the many academics and institutions that BioCity has developed relationships with over the years.
“Our track record in life sciences across North America has taught us many valuable lessons about the value of creating ecosystems and the premium investors can derive from carefully aligning operational asset management with investment. Our partners in Trinity have created a market-leading business and this new evolution as We Are Pioneer Group will raise the bar for one of Britain’s most exciting emerging asset classes.”
Richard O’Boyle, executive firector at Trinity, said: “Life sciences is a truly unique part of the real estate universe that requires intensive management and requires considerable networks to connect and support our tenants. Building meaningful links to academics, researchers, governments and pharmaceutical firms is critical for their success—and ours. Through the acquisition of BioCity, the new company will not only invest in real estate, but support tech transfer and accelerator programmes, with a scaleable ecosystem linking key universities, public bodies and the NHS with VC investment and many global partners.
“We Are Pioneer Group is the logical next step for our partnership with Harrison Street and it gives them a fully-integrated European life sciences platform to rival the scale of what the U.S. has to offer. Many look to Boston, MA for how to accelerate early-stage life science businesses, but the reality is that it is impossible to replicate something that has been embedded for forty years. Similarly, BioCity’s 20-year track record in support life science businesses will be critical to power our next steps. For investors, the JV will be better positioned to add scale and identify additional leasing opportunities with leading universities and pharmaceutical businesses.”
The deal provides an exit for BioCity investor, BGF.
