Birmingham’s life sciences revolution has begun.

Construction work on the first 133K SF specialist office and lab building at Birmingham Health Innovation Campus, Selly Oak, takes the city’s life sciences sector out of the incubator and onto the streets.

The development of the first block at BHIC inaugurates a 10-year masterplan for the campus being developed by Bruntwood SciTech, a 50:50 joint venture between Bruntwood and Legal & General. The JV is in partnership with the University of Birmingham.

When complete the campus will provide up to 657K SF of new commercial lab and office space and is expected to catalyse the growth of the region’s life sciences sector, contributing £400M gross value add to the region’s economy and as much as 1M SF of new life sciences floorspace.

Work on the building will complete in September 2023. The entire BHIC development is expected to be completed by 2031.

BHIC is a designated Life Science Opportunity Zone, one of six designated in England in 2020, all of which have access to a £10M pot of scientific funding and government help securing investment from national and international businesses.

Other Life Science Opportunity Zones include Cambridge, Oxford and Porton in Wiltshire.

Government figures show that the life sciences sector has a history of high performance, with turnover and employment growing by 3% and 8%, respectively, between 2009 and 2018 and turnover growing by almost £1B in the last year before the coronavirus pandemic.

The Birmingham site has also been identified by the Department for International Trade as a high potential opportunity for data driven healthcare.

The West Midlands claims the largest healthcare market outside London.

John Sisk & Son has been appointed as the main contractor for the first building.