November 2017

The BioHub Birmingham®, which provides flexible laboratory space for pre-revenue life science companies, has announced its expansion to meet the growing demand for laboratory space in the Midlands.

When the University-owned BioHub building first opened in 2015, its ground floor was designed and fully fitted out to be a shared-space life science incubator.

By early 2016, the ground floor had reached capacity, had a waiting list of interested tenants and was fielding enquiries from existing tenants about grow-on space.

The resident companies thrived as a result of being part of Birmingham’s integrated life sciences ecosystem, which includes 550 medical companies, over 180 medical organisations, 80 hospitals and specialist care centres, 44 GP clinics and routine care facilities, and 23 training facilities.

“Birmingham is increasingly visible as a destination for early stage medical and life science companies”, says Dr James Wilkie, CEO of the Birmingham Research Park, which hosts the BioHub Birmingham®. “In the last months alone, we had more than 10 enquiries from overseas companies who are looking seriously at Birmingham as the location for their UK operations.”

The life science sector will be in the first wave of sector deals highlighted in the Industrial Strategy White Paper, and is one of many sectors in which Birmingham is poised to reap benefits.

The University is investing £606 million investment in infrastructure to build assets that will further bring together the clinical, academic and commercial strengths of the region, and make Birmingham a destination of choice for life science companies.

The first floor of the BioHub will be fitted out to offer life science companies their own self-contained laboratory spaces, with adjacent office and breakout space. Companies on the site will also benefit from access to the world-class research of the University of Birmingham and other business support services.

This type of life science incubator space is widely available and selling strongly elsewhere in the UK yet there is no similar offering within Birmingham, and several potential tenants have already expressed interest.

The development will start in early 2018, and complete within the year.

ENDS

For further information contact
Ruth Ashton, Reputation and Communications Development Manager, [email protected], or tel 0121 414 9090 (out of hours 07989 558041).

About the BioHub Birmingham®
The BioHub hosts a thriving community of researchers and early stage life science companies including Linear Diagnostics, Nonacus, Gifford Bioscience and Future Genetics.
For more information about the BioHub Birmingham®, see www.thebiohub.co.uk.

About the life sciences ecosystem in Birmingham
The Edgbaston Medical Quarter hosts 64% of the city’s healthcare economy and is home to 550 medical companies, over 180 medical organisations, 80 hospitals and specialist care centres, 44 GP clinics and routine care facilities, and 23 training facilities. In addition to the expertise, the medical assets that are embedded in and around the University are particularly attractive to overseas companies. Birmingham Health Partners facilitate industry collaborations with the NHS and are dedicated to speeding up development from bench to bedside.

About the University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 5,000 international students from over 150 countries.

PRESS RELEASE

University of Birmingham innovator wins Intelligent Infrastructure Challenge

21 November 2017. A road surface temperature sensor developed at the University of Birmingham, which provides real-time data on road surface conditions, is set for rapid adoption on the UK’s road and motorway network following a national award at the Highways UK 2017 Intelligent Infrastructure Challenge.
Lee Chapman, Professor of Climate Resilience at the University won the national award for a low-cost, non-invasive and self-contained road surface temperature sensor which remotely senses road surface temperature using infrared themometry.
The Wintersense sensors are Internet of Things enabled, and use a new generation of low power communications to provide a real-time measurement of road surface temperature, that will be used to direct gritting lorries to priority areas.
The judging panel included representatives from Highways England, Transport Scotland, England’s Economic Heartland and Transport for the North (TfN). The judges felt that deploying this type of sensor network could have an immediate impact on their ability to better control gritting routines in winter.
Throughout the winter months, highways maintenance companies dispatch fleets of gritting lorries to prevent or mitigate the impact of black ice formation on motorways and A roads. In harsh winters, the routing of gritting lorries has to be prioritised to ensure optimal road safety.
The University of Birmingham is an institution that has a long history of research into winter road sensing and forecasting.
Lee Chapman commented: “The key issue in this prioritisation is having good spatial resolution on observation of road surface conditions. Our sensors are an order of magnitude cheaper than existing solutions, and light enough to be mounted on any lamp post, gantry or road sign, which means a dense network of sensors can be rapidly deployed along a road network to provide a highly granular picture of road surface conditions.”
The Wintersense sensors are part of a portfolio of products that provide decision-making tools to empower transport managers in the road maintenance and rail industries.
ENDS
For further information contact:
Ruth Ashton, Reputation & Communications Development Manager, University of Birmingham Enterprise, at [email protected], or tel 0121 414 9090 (out of hours 07989 558041).

About Highways UK
Highways UK is a major event that brings together the people and organisations involved in the planning, designing, building, operating and future-proofing of the UK’s road networks. With ten content streams running in parallel, it is not a trade show, but is positioned to attract and capture strategic planning and thought leadership at the leading edge of UK road infrastructure development.

About the University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 5,000 international students from over 150 countries.

About University of Birmingham Enterprise
University of Birmingham Enterprise supports academics who want to innovate, take their ideas to market, work with businesses and social enterprises, or enrich their professional lives by doing academic consultancy projects. We do this by providing enterprise training, funding, office and laboratory space, and a full technology transfer service. Follow us on Twitter @UoBAccelerate.

About Wintersense
Wintersense provides an Internet of Things approach to sensing road surface temperatures. It is available through Altasense, which develops sensors that are Wi-Fi enabled (to leverage existing communication networks), low-cost (enabling dense networks to be deployed) and self-contained and battery powered for simple, quick deployment. More information is available at www.wintersense.com.