A major investor and developer in the north-west and Midlands life sciences real estate sector is investing £200M in a major new scheme in west London, its first project in the capital.

Bruntwood SciTech is a joint venture between property company Bruntwood, institutional investor L&G and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund. It has teamed up with Imperial College and will build a 200K SF lab and office scheme on land owned by Imperial in the White City area of west London

The project was described as a £200M initial investment, and the JV and Imperial could undertake further projects together.

Valued at £1.5B, Bruntwood SciTech has a portfolio of 5.2M SF across 11 campus locations and 31 city centre locations in Manchester, Cheshire, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Cambridge and now London. It has plans to create a £5B portfolio by 2033 and has a 2.3M SF secured development pipeline.

The new building will be part of Imperial’s White City Deep Tech Campus, which provides research facilities for academics alongside space and support for early-stage companies. It includes about 1.5M SF of research, office and lab space. Student accommodation has already been built there, providing housing for more than 5,000 staff and students.

The new innovation centre will ultimately form part of Imperial’s £2B investment at the campus, of which a third has already been delivered. Construction is anticipated to start in 2026.

“The White City Campus is a hugely ambitious project that will help propel the UK to the forefront of innovation,” Bruntwood SciTech Chief Scientific Officer Kath Mackay said in a statement.

“Having worked to become deeply embedded in the knowledge economies of the UK’s leading regional cities and creating successful city-wide innovation ecosystems, it is now the perfect time for us to expand into London,” Mackay said.

“This new, joined up approach between the capital and the UK’s fastest growing regional cities will enable businesses to harness the power of the collective and encourage companies of all sizes to consider the UK as their first choice for future investment.”