{"id":448,"date":"2023-04-07T09:25:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T09:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cic.vc\/?p=448"},"modified":"2023-12-14T15:41:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:41:57","slug":"uks-cambridge-tries-to-catch-up-with-younger-innovative-peer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cic.vc\/uks-cambridge-tries-to-catch-up-with-younger-innovative-peer\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Cambridge tries to catch up with younger, innovative peer"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><span class=\"text-small\">New initiative aims to promote UK city on the world stage<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"text-small\">Kendall Square in Massachusetts is seen as a model for the UK<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Home to one of the world\u2019s oldest universities and renowned for contributing to discoveries such as the structure of DNA, Cambridge, England has still been recently overshadowed by its Massachusetts namesake that spawned Moderna Inc.\u2019s mRNA Covid-19 vaccine technology. Now, the UK city is trying to regain the limelight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Automata Technologies, a London-based maker of robots for medical labs, is so enthralled by the US city that it\u2019s setting up an additional office in Cambridge, Massachusetts\u2019 Kendall Square district, rather than in the ancient home of learning or anywhere else in the UK, for that matter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">\u201cAs people say, if you stand in Kendall Square and throw a stone, you\u2019re going to hit a biotech company,\u201d said Mostafa ElSayed, CEO and co-founder of Automata. \u201cIt\u2019s somewhere we want to be situated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">The fear of becoming less attractive on the global stage, particularly with so much innovation coming out of its younger, fitter rival, has inspired locals in the English city to devise a plan to attract more business and investment, turning to powerhouses such as Microsoft Corp. and AstraZeneca Plc to help brainstorm ideas. Some are looking to Kendall Square \u2014 which has transformed into an epicenter for biotech companies \u2014 as a model for what the city could do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Even long-time residents such as Frazer Bennett admire the buzz of the compatriot city, which is home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. \u201cThe number of startups and companies trying to change the world per square meter is probably denser than it is anywhere else on the planet,\u201d said Bennett, chief innovation officer at PA Consulting Group. \u201cThat makes it an energizing place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Cambridge is a crucial part of the UK\u2019s goal to become a science and technology superpower by 2030. The university\u2019s contribution to the domestic economy is almost quadruple that of UK soccer\u2019s Premier League, helped by hundreds of startups and companies spun out of the learning institution, according to a London Economics report. But in order for the city to succeed, it needs investors with deep pockets, seasoned entrepreneurs and better infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">One advantage the Massachusetts town has is geographical. While Cambridge, England is more of a remote college town, Cambridge, Massachusetts is cheek-by-jowl with Boston, forming a large metropolitan area that\u2019s easily accessible to travelers and industry connections. Getting around there is a lot easier, said Doug Cuff, senior vice president of UK real estate at IQHQ REIT, who has worked in both Cambridges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Getting to England\u2019s Cambridge takes at least 45 minutes from London by train. The English city is surrounded by rolling hills and farmland that are part of a green belt, which controls how much development can take place on rural land, to prevent US-style urban sprawl.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Rents that have ranged as high as $100 a square foot have pushed some biotech hopefuls out beyond Kendall Square to suburbs including Watertown, Waltham and Newton. Despite being rural, Cambridge England has space issues of its own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Alchemab Therapeutics Ltd., which develops custom therapies based on patients\u2019 immune systems, is currently working in two separate locations a couple of miles away from each other, according to Chief Scientific Officer Jane Osbourn. \u201cLab space around this area is hard to come by,\u201d Osbourn said. \u201cIt would be nice to have more continuity and be able to have more of an easier path forward in terms of planning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Plans for a shared lab space in England\u2019s Cambridge similar to Kendall Square\u2019s LabCentral are being considered, according to <strong>Andrew Williamson, managing partner at Cambridge Innovation Capital,<\/strong> part of the initiative that aims to promote the English city worldwide. \u201cThere is a clear playbook for how to do this,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re a few years behind because we got started on this journey a little bit later.\u201d Innovate Cambridge seeks to bring together individuals, organizations and the government to try to improve the city\u2019s infrastructure, attractiveness and work conditions.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">For Alchemab CEO Young Kwon, who previously worked at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based companies Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Biogen Inc., making the English city easier to work in is a key factor. \u201cA lot of that\u2019s around housing and roadways, just boring infrastructure, but it\u2019s necessary to support the influx of people,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Career opportunities are easier to come by in Massachusetts. The average starting salary for a biology graduate in England\u2019s Cambridge is between \u00a323,500 to \u00a328,000 ($29,000 to $35,000), according to specialist recruitment company CK Group. In the US, that same role has a starting salary of $50,000 to $75,000. While property prices are higher in the East Coast city, when it comes to average living costs, the median salary stretches further than it does in England, according to livingcost.org, a crowdsourced database.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"text-small\">Cambridge Versus Cambridge<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">It\u2019s hard to resist the appeal of Kendall Square, where companies including Pfizer Inc., Novartis AG and Sanofi have locations. AstraZeneca is working on a new site there, which will be an R&amp;D center for the company as well as the new corporate headquarters for Alexion, the rare-disease business it bought in 2021. The neighborhood\u2019s plentiful mix of coffee shops, diners and restaurants also makes it a go-to place outside of office hours, according to Scott Weintraub, a senior vice president at Alexion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">\u201cIt\u2019s really the perfect ecosystem,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">It ultimately comes down to a lifestyle choice, according to Jonathan Hart-Smith, CEO of CK Group, a pharma staffing company, who is based in Stevenage. \u201cIf you really like the history and the architecture and the feel that you get of being in Cambridge itself, then Cambridge UK I think wins hands down,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you want just the sheer scale of something huge and feeling part of a big, bustling, cosmopolitan city, then Cambridge, Massachusetts I think is the one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Still, England\u2019s Cambridge has proven to be a harbinger of innovation. Oliver Zolman, the 29-year-old regenerative medicine physician seeking to help clients such as tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson reverse the aging process, chose to set up a clinic in the city where he grew up so that his friends and family could have easy access to the therapy equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of cool stuff going on in Cambridge, but I guess we\u2019re not as vocal about it in some ways,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New initiative aims to promote UK city on the world stage Kendall Square in Massachusetts is seen as a model for the UK Home to one of the world\u2019s oldest universities and renowned for contributing to discoveries such as the structure of DNA, Cambridge, England has still been recently overshadowed by its Massachusetts namesake that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,29],"tags":[50],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - 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