World leading medical campus set to create 1,500 jobs in Manchester

A new world-leading campus looks set to create 1,500 new jobs and bring £150m into Manchester’s economy.

Plans have been announced to create a world-leading precision medicine campus in the Corridor Manchester Enterprise Zone.

The new centre will be located on the UK’s largest clinical academic campus – the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.

Greater Manchester’s partnership between academia, industry and the NHS – Health Innovation Manchester – has been working with global diagnostics firm QIAGEN on a joint project.

And Qiagen is moving its European operation to the Oxford Road campus as part of the deal.

Manchester Science Partnerships’ Citylabs 2.0 biomedical facility will be the home for the new campus.

Citylabs 2.0 is a 92,000 sq ft state of the art laboratory and office facility on Europe’s largest clinical –academic campus.

It is being developed for Manchester Science Partnerships by Bruntwood, its majority shareholder, and is a joint venture partnerships with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT).

The project is expected to create and support up to 1,500 jobs – adding almost £150m to Manchester’s economy over a decade.

The collaboration will also bring health benefits to Manchester and Greater Manchester residents through access to new tests and targeted treatments developed through pioneering research.

The proposals have been welcomed by Manchester and Greater Manchester civic, academic and health leaders.

Manchester City Council has approved a one-off investment of up to £21 million, underwritten by life science enterprise zone business rates, as part of a public-sector funding package to support a programme of research and development.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority has already agreed to provide £3 million of loan funding.

This will confirm Manchester as a world leader in this vital emerging industry with enormous growth potential.

Manchester is already a UK flagship for life sciences, with major innovation hubs in the Corridor Manchester Campus and nearby Alderley Park.

The investment will directly create around 250 jobs and safeguard an extra 215 while supporting more than 1,000 more indirectly across Manchester – adding an anticipated £140m to Manchester’s economy over a decade.

The campus will anchor the life sciences sector, acting as a market for related small and medium-sized enterprises as part of an Applied Health Innovation Campus and reinforcing the city’s reputation at the cutting edge of innovation.

Manchester city council Sir Richard Leese said: “This will help confirm Manchester as a world leader in this vital emerging industry with enormous growth potential.

“This is an opportunity that as a city we cannot afford to miss. It’s a win-win – not just creating a raft of new highly skilled health science jobs and an economic boost but crucially also opening up revolutionary new health benefits for people here.

Manchester’s future success depends on building on our distinctive strengths and life sciences definitely falls into that category.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said: “We’ve always led the way in Greater Manchester, whether it’s cutting edge science and technology, being at the forefront of social change, or pioneering partnerships across different sectors.

“The NHS was ‘born’ here in Greater Manchester in the middle of the 20th century, 70 years ago and last week we celebrated this. This week we secure our position in 21st century health innovation with this global deal.”

Rowena Burns, Chair of Health Innovation Manchester and Chair of Manchester Science Partnerships, said: “This is a hugely important step change for Greater Manchester’s already strong life sciences sector.
“The new health innovation campus, with QIAGEN at its heart, will support the continued growth of businesses which are driving the future shape of medicine and health care, and cement our position as a world-leader in precision medicine.

“This is precisely what Health Innovation Manchester was set up to do, and combined with our devolved health and social care system, places us in an incredibly strong position to address the health challenges of the population.”

Peer M. Schatz, Chief Executive Officer of QIAGEN, said: “These partnerships leverage QIAGEN’s rich expertise in Manchester to accelerate innovation as a basis for the development of valuable molecular tests.

“This is a true win-win situation, bringing together QIAGEN, the global leader in Sample to Insight solutions, with important intellectual assets in the U.K. to accelerate molecular biomarker research and subsequent development of new and promising diagnostic assays.

“We expect this collaborative initiative to serve as an innovation incubator to support translating genomic biomarkers into clinical use and ultimately to yield benefits for our customers and patients everywhere who need advanced diagnostic insights.”