More than £8m worth of funding has been granted to help bring a world-leading cancer hub in Sutton to life.
Sutton Council and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, have together secured £8.4 million to prepare land for development and put in place the infrastructure required for the first wave of commercial life-science buildings at the London Cancer Hub.
The project will create around 13,000 jobs – around 7,000 in life sciences and supporting activities, and 6,200 in the site’s construction.
Ruth Dombey, leader of Sutton Council, said: “We are delighted to secure this funding which will help support our ambitious plans for making Sutton home to one of the world’s leading cancer research and treatment hubs.
“The Knowledge Centre will make an important contribution to supporting effective collaboration between research, treatment and technology at The London Cancer Hub.
"Additionally, it will help to create thousands of new jobs in our borough.”
What is the Knowledge Centre?
The project is jointly led by Sutton Council and the ICR.
The council has already invested more than £30 million to acquire 4.8 hectares of land on the site, to accommodate up to 100,000 square metres of new commercial and life-science facilities. The hub will be developed on the Sutton site of the ICR and The Royal Marsden.
The new funding will be used to put in place the infrastructure requirements for initial buildings including a flagship Knowledge Centre, hosting labs, offices, business engagement activities, and collaboration and events space.
The Knowledge Centre will form one of the first new developments on The London Cancer Hub site, along with the ICR’s £75m Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery – which is currently under construction – The Royal Marsden’s planned £70m Oak Cancer Centre, and the completed Maggie’s Cancer Centre and Harris Federation secondary school.
Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of the ICR, said: “We're extremely pleased to receive this important boost to our plans for The London Cancer Hub.
"The new funding will catalyse development and underpin the creation of a flagship Knowledge Centre that will further enhance our already excellent collaborations with industry partners.
“This new investment represents a big step forward for our plans to create the world’s leading cancer-focused life-science district, and will help to accelerate our research discoveries and their development for patients.”
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