After a tough 2025, buyers in and builders of life sciences actual property have purpose to cheer in 2026 because the Cambridge market turns again to extra beneficial instances, with the emergence of plenty of excellent news improvement tales.
In October, Brockton Everlast obtained consent for their Fenway improvement on the Cambridge Science Park, creating 250,000 sq. toes of latest construct amenities geared toward life sciences and expertise firms, in protecting with the present occupier combine on the science park. Then, in December, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government gave Railpen’s proposed redevelopment of the Beehive Centre the go-ahead. Currently a retail park, Railpen plans to remodel the property into an innovation campus, spanning analysis and improvement and the expertise sector, alongside retail and leisure house to service the occupants of the property.
Elsewhere the Wellcome Genome Campus secured planning permission to ship two labs, spanning 215,278 sq. toes on the Campus and extra lately has chosen an expert workforce to develop a masterplan for the growth of their campus from 125 to 440 acres. The first section of this growth would add 180,000 sq. toes of lab house, alongside properties and group facilities. In occupier information, AstraZeneca has simply submitted a planning software for a brand new six-storey facility adjoining to their current and beneath improvement areas on the Cambridge BioMedical Campus, solidifying Cambridge as the long run residence of AZ. The BioMedical Campus will shortly welcome the opening of a brand new railway station, Cambridge South, which can present new connectivity to each central Cambridge and to London, making the Campus ever extra enticing to occupiers.
Whilst it stays to be seen how a lot constructing work will truly begin beneath these varied planning consents, significantly if that’s speculative, the dedication of those firms to expending funds to advance their growth plans reveals the return of confidence to the sector and can possible present a broader option to occupiers. There is, too, rising proof (as will be seen in the above examples) of the diversification of the occupier combine on science parks with information suggesting that alongside the standard “life science/ R&D” tenants, new expertise firms, significantly in the AI house are additionally in being a part of these innovation clusters. Developers are definitely pitching their tasks at each science and expertise now and we might properly see a pivot the place the standard “science park” turns into a science and expertise park. But what is evident is that Cambridge stays common and properly positioned on the forefront of the science (and expertise) sectors for the foreseeable future.