Science in the city: what’s next for London’s pharma industry?
Mixed signals across the life science sector in the UK point to contradictory narratives on where the industry is heading, but there are still promising shoots of innovation emerging in London
London’s life science workplace story is a tale of two speeds. While some global pharma companies are pausing or pulling back on UK research and development initiatives – note Merck’s high-profile withdrawal of its discovery centre in London and subsequently AstraZeneca’s paused plans for UK investment – there is still a lot of movement and progress being made in the industry.
London is still adding lab-enabled real estate in clusters throughout the city from King’s Cross to Canary Wharf. The latest addition to the pipeline, is a newly relaunched life sciences hub in Bloomsbury, Victoria House.
Driving forces
The turbulence in the sector is driven by apparently contradictory signals. On the one hand, the UK market attractiveness is under strain. Merck and AstraZeneca have cited the UK’s NHS pricing and rebate regime as making it less attractive to base expensive R&D centres in London. Other factors such as unpredictable return on investments and regulatory friction following Brexit are contributing forces pushing the sector away.
On the other hand, there are several drivers pulling the sector back into the city. London’s start-up and scale-up scene is unusually strong for life science, in the first half of 2025 London-based life science and tech companies raise around £1.3 billion in VC funding – ahead of Oxford and Cambridge combined. This pull, alongside quieter traditional office demand, is seeing landlords and developers invest more in converting or redeveloping offices into lab space.
London has also pivoted its focus from facilities that accommodate a single big pharma anchor, to schemes that are betting on ecosystems. These ‘innovation districts’ attract a mix of incubators, scale-ups, service providers, academia and associations in close proximity to promote innovation and fast-paced progress.
Projects on the horizon
As a testament to London’s ambitions to hold onto a thriving life science community, Victoria House officially opened on the 16 September 2025. The 300,000 sqft redevelopment project in Bloomsbury Square combines fully fitted lab space with incubator spaces and serviced offices.
The Grade II listed building, redeveloped by Oxford Properties and Pioneer Group, has already attracted companies such as Xterna, AAVantgarde Bio, Curecraft, Emles Bioventures and BioIndustry Association. The building supports flexible lab layouts with shared core lab services such as cold storage and shared instrumentation, and open-access benches as an entry point. Phase two of the project, which will be delivered in 2026, will see an additional 200,00 sqft of dedicated lab space.
Unlike many newer lab towers located in outer clusters or near large campuses, Victoria House is deep in the Knowledge Quarter in Bloomsbury, bridging the life science sector with central academic, hospital and infrastructure networks. It will also be the host to WORKTECH’s upcoming Life Science Workplace event on Tuesday 18th November 2025.
Designing for science workplaces
One of the key partners of the Life Science, architects BVN provided commentary on what the future of science workplaces should look like in our World of Work in 2025 report earlier this year. In this commentary, BVN called for a change in the way we design science facilities – which have traditionally been designed for functionality over workplace experience.
BVN’s provocation is as follows: ‘Labs are undeniably complex, with stringent requirements for safety, services and structure, calibration, and risk mitigation. But should that come at the cost of spaces that foster collaboration, creativity and wellbeing? Across other industries, architecture and design has embraced diverse settings that enhance both focus and interaction. Why hasn’t this shift taken root more deeply in science workplaces?’
While global pharma companies are wary of UK policy headwinds, there is still a thriving local ecosystem in London of SMEs and scale-ups who are driving real, immediate demand for new workplaces. The complexities and arising questions surrounding the industry will be explored at WORKTECH’s upcoming Life Science London event, which is taking place during London Life Science week.
