Savills research has observed that venture capital (VC) funding into European life sciences has grown by 24% per annum over the last five years, reaching €10bn during 2021, with drug discovery and biotechnology raising the most capital.
France is one of the key locations in Europe seeing a significant growth in the number of life science companies and has recorded growth in VC funding in established locations such as Paris, Toulouse and Lyon, reaching €1.17bn in 2021, the highest level amongst all continental European countries. This has a significant impact on real estate as Savills forecasts that every €1 billion of VC funding raised creates a demand of 46,000 sq m of office or lab space within 12-18 months.
Paris in particular is already home to many of the leading global pharmaceutical companies. Yet, from a real estate perspective, the French capital is severely undersupplied in terms of quality laboratory enabled real estate, with strong forecast occupational requirements set to absorb any near term pipeline. Paris comprises four key life science clusters, Paris-Saclay, Genopole, Biocitech and Cancer Campus. Savills anticipates that existing and emerging occupiers in the science and technology sectors will be attracted to these clusters to grow their operations and advance their discovery efforts, providing an opportunity for new development of multi tenanted laboratory premises.
George Coleman, Life Science Lead in the European Capital Markets team at Savills, says: “Paris is one of continental Europe’s foremost life science clusters and is home to major healthcare companies and public / private partnerships which support the growth of the ecosystem as a whole. The cluster dynamics are strong with a good combination of Academia, Industry (Investment) and Government support, and life science companies want to be part of this attractive ‘Triple Helix’.”
Georgia Ferris, European Research Analyst at Savills, comments: “In France, scientific and technical economic output is forecast to grow by a further 2.19% per annum over the next five years, signalling a strong economic outlook for investment in the sector which will create further real estate demand.”
To read the report, please visit: https://www.savills.com/research_articles/255800/332913-0