Shining a light on businesses at Milton Park

Shining a light on businesses at Milton Park

Investment and collaboration takes occupiers to new heights

Our friends working in life sciences at Milton Park will know only too well the level of interest there’s been in the sector recently, particularly since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Not only are there plenty of anecdotes to support this, but the stats back this up too. In October, figures reported in the Financial Times show that in the UK, total funds raised this year have reached £4.25bn already, compared with £2.8bn in 2020. Much of the investment has been targeted at life science businesses within the Golden Triangle between Oxford, London and Cambridge with the area seeing six of the seven £50m-plus funding rounds undertaken this year.

With a fast-growing life science cluster at the Park, these findings prompted us to think – what if we ‘shined a light’ on the investment generated by the businesses located here?    

This ‘illuminating’ thought provided the inspiration for our latest billboard, on view to people visiting or driving past Milton Park.

Is there more to the billboard than what meets the eye, you may wonder? Well, (and bear with us here…):

• The lightbulbs represent the companies – big, medium and small
• The power is the investment generated for the life sciences sector
• Milton Park is the glass casing of the lightbulb, providing a home for all of the essential components to work together
• The current (or innovation) travels through the wires and the filament heats up to the point where it begins to emit light, leading to ground-breaking discoveries!

The impressive results businesses on the Park have achieved over the past year, during a time of uncertainty and turbulence, shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s about time we took a closer look at some of this amazing work.

Innovate.

To shine a light on the innovative contributions the businesses at Milton Park make to the Oxfordshire and wider UK economy, we asked high-growth insights company Beauhurst to undertake some in-depth research for us.

Their findings reveal that the public and private equity investment of occupiers reached £590m between January and October 2021. This is in large part due to the incredible success from the life science and technological breakthroughs made in the wake of the pandemic, placing innovation front and centre.

Collaborate.

The hard work of businesses on Milton Park have seen impressive investment from – and collaboration with – national policymakers. The UK government’s Life Sciences Vision initiative outlines the plans for growth for the sector over the next decade. Resident companies Isansys, Immunocore and Arctoris have had significant involvement in developing the initiative, which seeks to solve some of the biggest healthcare problems of our generation, including cancer, dementia, and infectious diseases such as Covid-19.

Inspire.

The life sciences industry has its eyes set firmly on the future, and our businesses are making strides to inspire budding scientists. This October, pharmaceutical firm Vertex launched a series of STEAM education programmes alongside a new state-of-the-art ‘Learning Lab’ space at Milton Park, giving the opportunity for students to gain a hands-on experience of working in a lab-based environment.

Crucially, part of Vertex’s £36.5m investment is geared towards improving diversity and inclusion, with a particular focus on encouraging and inspiring those who may not usually consider a career in science and technology to do so.

Looking at the bigger picture

Additional findings from Beauhurst’s research show that the combined turnover of businesses at Milton Park totals more than £37bn, according to their latest set of financial accounts.

Meanwhile, record amounts of venture capital have been raised for the life sciences industry globally. Our friends at Adaptimmune, Immunocore, Exscientia, Oxford Immunotec and most recently Evotec have all attracted huge levels of investment through floating on the NASDAQ stock exchange – let’s hope there’s more to come!

We’re delighted to support companies of all sizes on the Park, from start-ups and spin-outs to existing occupiers, along with new companies that have recently joined us. The scale of these investments is leading to a growing demand for lab space and science campuses, yet another sign of a thriving sector. For those working in the industry – don’t worry – the team at Milton Park are busy planning the next pipeline of projects, more information of which will arrive shortly.

To take a closer look at the figures behind the investment generated by businesses here, feel free to download our research factsheet.

We’re excited to be publishing more research in the New Year on the great work businesses at Milton Park are doing – make sure to keep an eye out for it!