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19. The University of York

Market Assessment into Proposed Innovation Centre
  • 2015

  • University of York

The BioVale Innovation Centre York

The University of York in partnership with the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership

Kada was subcontracted to NNFCC (the Bio Economy Consultants) to develop the business case for the proposed BioVale Centre, a £15m facility designed to support the development of innovative, high growth businesses in industrial biotechnology and biorenewables.

The proposed centre planned to: offer access to scale-up and equipment hosting facilities; develop new and established businesses and promote bio clustering activities. The consultant’s team role was three fold. (a) To assess whether there was demand for the centre from companies – NNFCC’s led on this part and conducted a review of prospective tenants in the UK and abroad. Their findings were very illuminating demonstrating demand for certain elements (b) To assess their proposed pricing structure. Here Kada worked closely with Atam Verdi at AspinalVerdi a leading regional property consultant. We looked at facilities across the UK and were able to make detailed comments on the proposed pricing menu to inform the client’s 10 year business plan (c) Finally we looked at the offer from comparator facilities to ensure we had a truly unique proposition. Kada worked with an inward investment specialist to assess the competition from Bio centres in the UK (NNFCC looked at global centres). We were able to suggest an innovation and wrap around support offer that would be compelling, building on the exceptional quality of life York has to offer and the many assets of the University and the proposed anchor tenant – the BioVale Development Centre.

The time scale was quite demanding on this study as decisions around the business case needed to be made by the LEP and others. Working in a consortium with a leading team of experts from the North, NNFCC and Kada were able to draw together an assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the proposition and assist the client in taking their ideas to the next stage. The client claimed it was ‘a very useful exercise’.

“Universal wrap around support”

“The key strength of the BioVale Centre offer is its universal wrap around support for industry in providing access to office, lab space, equipment, hangar space and the ability to integrate its own equipment with that of the Centre.

~ The BioVale Centre: Market Assessment, NNFCC / Kada Research, 2015