Developer Bruntwood and Legal & General have teamed up with the University of Birmingham and two local NHS Foundation Trusts to invest £210m in the research campus.

The Birmingham Health Innovation Campus will be built on the former Battery Park in Selly Oak. When complete it will provide up to 657,000 sq ft of lab, office and incubation space providing co-location opportunities for all stages of health and life science businesses.

The first phase includes a 133,000 sq ft, six-storey building housing a new innovation centre – the Precision Health Technologies Accelerator  – to bring together genomics and diagnostic expertise for healthcare advances.

The 10-acre site has already received development funding from Birmingham City Council and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.

Dr David Hardman, managing director of Bruntwood SciTech, said: “This is a huge opportunity for the UK’s life science sector.

“By creating an environment that will not only help businesses to form, scale, collaborate and grow, we will establish a new thriving life sciences hub, which will create much-needed capacity for the West Midlands and help to attract further international investment to the region and beyond.

“Working alongside Birmingham Health Partners, Birmingham Health Innovation Campus will help to align academic, NHS and industry capabilities.”

Eleanor Jukes, Strategic Investment Manager – Future Cities at Legal and General Capital, said: “The Birmingham Health Innovation Campus, once completed, will provide world-leading office and lab facilities.

“Over the next ten years this landmark scheme will unlock over 10,000 new jobs and contribute around £400m to the local region, acting as a major catalyst for economic recovery in the wake of Covid-19.”

Work will begin on an extensive public consultation in the coming months, with the first phase currently set to complete in 2023.