The real estate investment manager Quercus Investments and the venture capital management company Columbus Venture Partners are joining forces to promote business campuses focused on life science hubs.
With this goal in mind, the partners have already raised approximately 100 million in capital from private investors and family offices and have launched Sokai Hub España, a vehicle specialising in this type of assets aimed at housing the new ecosystem of innovation in life sciences.
Sokai Hub España is born with two assets already acquired - one of them in San Sebastian, which will be its flagship, and another in Madrid - to which is added a third, under negotiation, in the Granada Health Technology Park.
The San Sebastian centre will be located in the recently expanded Parque Tecnológico de Euskadi (Parke) in Illunbe and represents the main part of the vehicle's investment. This real estate development, which already has a building permit, will include more than 64,000 square metres of built space on a 36,700 square metre plot.
The complex will combine a number of specialised uses, including research laboratories, GMP rooms used by medical and pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure controlled space, corporate offices, conference rooms and coworking spaces. It will also include space for some 33 rental flats designed to provide accommodation for the centre's employees.
With an expected investment of approximately 80 million, Sokai Guipúzcoa Hub will be the ‘largest real estate development’ specialising in life sciences in southern Europe, according to Quercus Investments.
The asset will be partially operational in early 2027 and completed a year later, with the aim of being fully operational by 2030.
The interest being generated by the centre is significant and there are already pre-commercialisation agreements in place for 75% of the gross leasable area (GLA), according to its promoters. The implementation of the hub has the support of San Sebastian City Council, Parke, the Provincial Council of Guipuzcoa and the Basque Government.
Other assets
Sokai Hub España will complement this development with an asset in Tres Cantos (Madrid), recently leased to AdvanThera Solutions, a firm specialising in gene and cell therapies and regenerative medicine. The property, of more than 3,200 square metres, is fully operational.
The third planned asset is in the process of being acquired in the Granada Health Technology Park and is designed to house laboratories, offices and specialised production space.
The chairman and co-founder of Columbus Ventures Partners, Javier García Cogorro, who is also founder and chairman of Viralgen, says that the alliance with Quercus Investments stems from a shared conviction that biomedical innovation requires ‘specific, well-designed and strategically located spaces’.
For Fernando Garnica and Pelayo Muñoz, partners in Quercus Investments, this project, which aims to become a ‘national benchmark’ in specialised life science assets, demonstrates that real estate can be a ‘real catalyst’ for industry if it connects with ‘the real needs’ of strategic sectors such as life sciences.