Major life sciences investment heading to former AstraZeneca site
More than 200 jobs are expected to be created following a £4.6m investment in revamping laboratory space at the former AstraZeneca campus near Loughborough.
Specialist lab space that is currently unused at Charnwood Campus will be “reactivated to create a world-class biochemistry building”, enabling an unnamed research organisation to move in from outside the area.
Andy Reed, Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) co-chair, said: “This lab space will bring inward investment through the arrival of the first tenant.
“But it will also support the development and growth of businesses in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medtech sectors by offering research, development, and small batch manufacturing capacity here in Leicestershire.”
100 jobs will be created within the first year, with that number forecast to more than double to 222 within five years.
The LLEP has forecast the inward investment will introduce a further 1,110 jobs in the supply chain.
The money is coming from Enterprise Zone Retained Rates Funding from the LLEP, in partnership with Charnwood Borough Council.
Existing facilities will be upgraded as part of the first phase of an Innovation Centre project that will provide specialised laboratories for Leicester and Leicestershire’s life sciences cluster.
The project will produce 100,000 sq ft of highly-specialised bio-chemistry laboratory and office space.
Gosia Khrais, commercial and marketing director at Charnwood Campus, said: “This investment will help accelerate our ambition to become a meaningful life sciences asset in the region, attracting inward investment, and providing employment directly on the site and within our local supply chain.
“The project will also allow us to bring forward some of the other schemes that we have been working on in the background.”
Charnwood Campus was the UK’s first Life Sciences Opportunity Zone and forms part of the Loughborough and Leicester Science and Innovation Enterprise Zone.
