Chancellor Rachel Reeves was joined by Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle in a visit to the Cambridge Biomedical campus on Friday (01/11). The campus is set to receive £500 million in investment from US firm Prologis.

The investment will fund a 115,000 sqaure foot lab expansion and office space within a high-tech research hub, with Reeves hailing this as “a real show of confidence in what this Government are doing to grow the economy”.

The first phase of the project will feature a 450-space semi-sunken cycle park, a multistorey car park, and additional area enhancements. The second phase will include 3000 Discovery Drive, a speculative development that has already received planning permission and will provide an extra 100,000 square foot of life science space.

Reeves commented: “This additional investment will mean that we can create more good jobs paying decent wages as well as developing here in the UK life-saving drugs, and that’s incredibly exciting.”

The campus currently supports over 22,000 jobs and generates £4.2 billion annually for the UK economy. Prologis’s investment in the campus is expected to directly or indirectly support a total of 4,167 skilled jobs.

Kyle stated: “When I come here and see it and see the impact it will have on science, on jobs, on the businesses of the future and the wealth creation for Cambridge, but also for our country as well, I just find it exhilarating, and I find it inspiring.”

“Major investments like this from Prologis, bringing the sector’s largest global companies under one roof in Cambridge, is another vote of confidence in the UK’s approach to long-term growth,” he continued.

The campus currently focuses on researching global healthcare challenges, such as understanding dementia and developing early detection techniques in cancer treatment.

Prologis is a real estate investment trust which invests in logistics facilities. According to their website, 2.8% of the world’s GDP goes through their distribution centres each year.

The trust has not yet disclosed potential occupants for these buildings, but it is understood that they are in discussions with interested parties such as AstraZeneca, Abcam, and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) on the campus.

The news of further investment in lab space in Cambridge comes amid growing concerns about water shortages, high housing prices, and traffic congestion in the area. Mr. Kyle affirmedthat the government is “very acutely aware” of these ongoing issues.

He revealed his hope that the £10 million funding for Cambridge Growth Company would fund “enough research to understand all the community challenges that we see into the future and to start putting the long-term strategic planning in place.”