Newly endorsed by the Scaleup Institute, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) is a collaboration between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), GlaxoSmithKline, Wellcome and Innovate UK. It aims to support a globally recognised vibrant ecosystem that brings together academics, biotech and pharma organisations in the spirit of collaboration and partnership. The campus offers a range of lab and office accommodation along with business and scientific support including access to peer networks, mentoring, funding, expertise, scientific equipment and facilities to enable businesses to scale up and deliver innovations.

Scaleups are supported to overcome key challenges including access to talent, markets and finance. This includes access to its dedicated Catapult onsite training lab providing specialist equipment to train apprentices through augmented and virtual reality and helping to address the skills gap in the cell and gene therapy sector.  

To enhance the talent pipeline there are around 13 active apprenticeships in addition to 12 with GSK. This includes the Advanced Therapies Apprenticeship Community provided by the cell and gene therapy Catapult that helps to address the crucial skills gap in the cell and gene therapy manufacturing sector. ATAC created the first apprenticeship programme. SBC’s Generation Stevanage initiative and summer school promote apprenticeships, training and career opportunties.  

The programme’s free DATA accelerator programme equips scaleups with leadership, business and commercial skills and connects them with investors. A dedicated Entrepreneurship and Business Development Director facilitates introductions to grant funding, investors and venture capitalists.  

The programme holds workshops with the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq and three scientific interest groups foster information sharing, collaboration and innovation. Its CEO network creates valuable peer to peer connections along with annual One Nucleus, BIA and BioTechYes events with industry professionals and academics. 

The new Spark Building provides space for scaling companies in advanced cell and gene therapy, providing space to manufacture clinical trial batches. A £900m investment in the campus by Reef Group UBS Asset Management will create further expansion space for businesses to scale and grow. The new campus will be one of the largest of its kind in Europe. 

Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst supports resident companies to grow and scale quickly, speeding up the time to market by an average of nine months and research acceleration by six months. Resident scaling companies created a gross GVA of £87m. Since 2012, SBC based companies have secured £2.9bn investment and been awarded 51 research grants with a total value of £32m. In the next 12 months they expect an average employee growth of 25% while by 2040 SBC residents are expected to deliver £165m net GVA and 2,900 jobs.

Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst [2022] website