51乱伦

TMT Rising

A resurgent TMT sector has emerged as a key driver of office demand across the South East and Greater London. In the South East, GVA for the broader digital and communications-intensive industries is estimated to have grown by approximately 6% in 2025, with headcount in the region鈥檚 TMT sector forecast to rise by a further 6% over the next three years. Occupiers from the sector have accounted for 634,000 sq ft of take-up across 68 transactions in the region so far this year, representing 24% of total market activity, according to South East and Greater London Offices report.

Oxford Life Sciences: Inside View

latest visit to Oxford, sharpened the view from the lab floor. Conversations with occupiers and other industry players underscore that there is a missing middle in finance that still separates seed from scale. Research models are evolving as CRO partnerships multiply and data security is engineered into workflows. AI is powering discovery, yet it remains only as good as the biological data it ingests. The physical estate must keep up, filling a need for flexible lab space and better connectivity/digital and data infrastructure to support growth.

Pre-Budget Pitch: Life Sciences Makes Its Case

Westminster鈥檚 pre-Budget choreography has stepped up with multiple industry bodies making their case. The has pressed for a reset with the following asks:

• Raise NICE鈥檚 baseline cost-effectiveness thresholds and cut branded medicines rebate rates to single digits.
• Protect existing incentives: Patent Box, R&D tax credits and full capital expensing.
• Update the Treasury Green Book so appraisals capture long-term productivity and strategic value of medicines manufacturing.
• Restore MHRA鈥檚 Trading Fund status to enable multi-year planning and pro-innovation regulation.
• Improve the Global Talent Visa by spreading the Immigration Health Surcharge cost.
• Keep VAT off 鈥渇ree-of-charge鈥� early-access medicines to preserve trial and access attractiveness.

The has struck a complementary note, asking the Chancellor to avoid new taxes or business rates on innovative firms, to accelerate deployment of Innovate UK and British Business Bank capital, bolster R&D tax reliefs and investor schemes (EIS/VCT), expand support for startup share options and free up pension money for venture investment in life sciences.

Venture Capital鈥檚 AI Drug Bet

latest survey of artificial intelligence in drug development suggests that the hype, has some numbers behind it. AI tools are now threaded through the biopharma value chain. Startups are using models to identify their own pipelines of drug candidates, selling discovery-as-a-service to big pharma, offering AI-enabled platforms, and embedding algorithms in clinical trial design and execution. In the past 12 months, venture capitalists have poured $3.2bn into AI in drug development across 135 deals. AI-enabled pharma tools and services account for 62.5% of deal count. The bulk of the money, however, has flowed to AI-native drug developers, which have captured 70.1% of total capital.

AI鈥檚 overall footprint in biopharma remains modest. Its share of deal count has hovered around a five-year average of 4.1%. Its share of capital has crept up, reaching 9% of biopharma funding in 2024 and 8.4% so far this year.

Investors are paying up for the privilege. In 2024, AI-native biotech firms have raised at a median valuation of $78m, nearly double the wider biopharma median. That gap reflects both a frothy AI funding environment and a belief that algorithmic drug hunting will lift R&D productivity and improve the odds that a molecule survives clinical testing. A new cohort of AI-first biotech鈥檚 has emerged accordingly. Xaira Therapeutics, Isomorphic Labs and Generate Biomedicines have all achieved unicorn status within their first two institutional rounds.

Early performance data will do little to calm the excitement. Studies point to Phase I success rates of 80% to 90% for the first wave of AI-generated assets, compared with an industry norm of roughly 40% to 65%. If the numbers hold as assets move into later-stage trials, AI in drug discovery will move from fashionable thesis to hard-nosed allocation priority. It could also serve to renew investor interest in early-stage funding if it de-risks and accelerates the drug discovery process.

Investors are also warming to AI in pharma tools and services. These are firms that do not develop their own pipelines but sell AI capabilities into others鈥� labs and trials. They range from AI 鈥渓ab assistants鈥� to clinical-trial optimisation and outsourced AI service providers. Lila Sciences, for example, is building AI systems that work with lab robotics to automate the scientific process and is now expanding globally. For real estate planners and lab operators, this points to growing demand for highly instrumented, automation-ready facilities rather than traditional wet labs alone.

The story is not all smooth scaling curves and unicorns. Growth is constrained by data siloes, a lack of standardised benchmarks to compare models, the messy work of integrating AI into existing scientific workflows and live concerns over biosecurity.

Beyond the Animal Testing Model: Regulation Catches Up

Regulation is moving too. A cross-government roadmap will phase out specified animal tests on fixed dates and accelerate the regulatory acceptance of alternatives. By the end of 2026, there will be an end of regulatory animal tests for skin and eye irritation, and skin sensitisation. By 2027, mouse potency assays for botulinum toxin should end and adventitious agent testing for human medicines should shift to DNA based lab methods. By 2030, pharmacokinetic studies on dogs and nonhuman primates should be reduced.

To make this more than wishful thinking, government has earmarked funding for a data and methods hub and a centre designed to smooth regulatory approval, alongside grants for human in vitro models in areas from liver disease to pain. The practical effect will be felt in facilities. Demand should rise for facilities that enable other methods of testing such as human cell and tissue based in vitro models, organ-on-chip and microphysiological systems, in silico modelling and AI/machine learning/data driven strategies.

Other Reads

of Pioneer Group has joined the Oxford鈥揅ambridge Supercluster Board, an appointment that coincides with new funding for the Growth Corridor and the launch of Equinox. Chris Walters will add an acquisition and placemaking lens to the Board鈥檚 Innovation Places Expert Panel.

A survey of UK-based tech RSM UK found that just over three-quarter were considering listing publicly within the next five year and 57% said their top destination would be in London.

T-Therapeutics, a Cambridge University biotech spin-out developing next-generation T cell receptor (TCR) therapeutics for cancer and autoimmune disease, has raised a fresh $32 million to bring its Series A haul to date to $91m.

, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, has joined Paddington Life Sciences Partners, a life sciences community centred around St Mary鈥檚 Hospital in Paddington.

, Meta's chief AI scientist and Turing Award winner, is planning to leave the company to launch his own startup focused on "world models"

, the $10 billion quantum computing firm, has unveiled its Helios machine. With 98 physical qubits delivering 48 logical error-corrected qubits, Helios achieves an impressive 2:1 ratio compared to competitors requiring dozens or hundreds of physical qubits per logical qubit.

is in line for more than 3,400 new jobs through a newly announced AI Growth Zone.

, an Oxford, UK-based techbio startup, raised $12m in seed funding.

launched the Spärck AI scholarships that will provide full funding for master鈥檚 degrees at nine leading UK universities specialising in artificial intelligence and STEM subjects 鈥� from Edinburgh to Manchester, and Newcastle to Bristol.

The UK鈥檚 Minister for AI and Online Safety, Kanishka Narayan, and the Netherlands鈥� Cabinet Minister for Economic Affairs, Vincent Karremans, signed the . The agreement sets out how the 2 countries will forge closer ties in their work to seize the vast potential for AI, quantum, and semiconductors.

from the National Academies, universities sector, and UKRI and led by Science Minister Lord Vallance, met with Chinese politicians, academics, and business leaders to agree specific areas where the two countries can work together on science.