Birmingham is the place where the future is made

Not a science problem - our research base is world-class. Nor is it a talent problem - we train some of the best clinicians and researchers anywhere. The problem is the old assumption, reflected in decades of investment decisions, that life sciences begin and end in the ‘golden triangle’ of London, Oxford, and Cambridge.

Birmingham trains many apprentices and graduates, but historically too few stayed in the city. Now, at the old Pebble Mill site in Selly Oak, the University of Birmingham's Precision Health Technologies Accelerator is creating skilled jobs and opportunities – all connected by the A38 and the Cross City Line to new manufacturing sites and housing. This is economic transformation in practice, and its potential must be nurtured across south Birmingham.

This overlooks the critical contribution of the West Midlands. Birmingham is still the place where the future is made, and that is as true of life sciences as it is of nuclear research and advanced manufacturing. No other region can rival our convergence of expertise, affordable research space, and population diversity. This combination is already turning long-held ambitions into reality.

In my constituency of Birmingham Northfield, life sciences is finally bringing manufacturing jobs back to Longbridge, twenty years after the closure of MG Rover.

This success story is still in its infancy. Birmingham's Health and Life Sciences District covers a square mile, turning over nearly £5 billion annually. It is one of the largest integrated health and life sciences campuses in the UK. While some welcome support has already been had, I want decision-makers in London to speak about Birmingham with just as much enthusiasm as they do about the golden triangle.

The benefits for public health could be enormous. Take the ELSA study. Launched in 2022 and led by Dr Parth Narendran at the University of Birmingham, it was the first UK study to demonstrate that childhood screening for type 1 diabetes is effective - tested through finger-prick blood spots, detecting autoantibodies years before symptoms appear.

The breakthrough lays the groundwork for a national screening programme and opens the door to therapies that could change thousands of children’s lives. The first teenager identified through ELSA has already received groundbreaking immunotherapy treatment at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust. As the Science Minister Lord Vallance has put it: ‘We're in an era of cures.’ But the Golden Triangle cannot get us there alone.

Yet, when Birmingham's share of health research funding was scrutinised in 2022 - the very year ELSA began - the city received just 3 per cent of the total. Cambridge and Oxford each took nearly three times that. London took about ten times. On any objective measure, that funding disparity was not just unfair - it was harmful to the nation as a whole.

None of this diminishes what Birmingham has built. The University of Birmingham ranks sixth nationally for clinical medicine research. Over the past five years, it has been awarded more than £1 billion in new research and development funding. The University of Birmingham outranks the Golden Triangle across a range of HESA medicine and health metrics, and the University is also rising in the QS World University Rankings, reaching its highest position in a decade.

Around 400 doctors and over 500 life scientists graduate every year. Birmingham leads genomics services for ten million people. The West Midlands Secure Data Environment opens the door to real-time AI health data analytics in clinical trials. Backed by Cancer Research UK, researchers here are responsible for the majority of academic childhood cancer trials in the UK, many of which are recruiting patients internationally.

What makes Birmingham genuinely distinctive - and competitive - is its diversity. Birmingham as a whole is one of the most diverse and youthful cities in Europe. Clinical trial data drawn from such varied genetic backgrounds is far more relevant to global pharmaceutical markets than data from other areas.

Then there are the economics. Commercial rents in Birmingham run at a tenth of those in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Laboratory and research space is almost exhausted in the Golden Triangle, and therefore comes at a premium. Birmingham has a great reserve of talent from people born in the city and those who stay and build. Precedent is with us. The Binding Site, a University of Birmingham spin-out, now turns over £200 million annually, employs 1,200 people, and serves clinicians and researchers across 87 countries.

The Birmingham Health Innovation Campus, opened last year and delivered in partnership between the University of Birmingham and Bruntwood SciTech, is set to create over 10,000 jobs and £400 million in GVA over the next decade. Its anchor tenant, the Precision Health Technologies Accelerator, is already shortening the journey from breakthrough research to real-world treatment, and developing the region's first near-patient manufacturing facility for advanced therapies.

This Government has committed to a life sciences strategy that invests across the country. Birmingham shares that ambition. We are not asking for the world, but our fair share – and Birmingham’s chance to better the health of the nation.

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Laurence Turner is the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield.

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