Opportunities and Challenges Associated with Biotech Incubators

Unlike many other industries, biotech companies require wet labs—highly specialized and costly facilities that must be custom-designed to align with specific research needs. These spaces demand careful planning in terms of laboratory design, construction, and renovation to ensure safety, efficiency, and adaptability for evolving scientific workflows. Given the extended timeframes for bringing products to market and the high rate of cash burn, biotech startups pose a greater financial risk to incubators. However, through strategic partnerships, incubators and biotech startups can collaboratively accelerate innovation, streamline operations, and optimize resource allocation.

Aline Charpentier, head of innovation at Bruntwood SciTech in Manchester, UK, explores the challenges and opportunities of biotech incubators, offering insights into selecting the best laboratory facilities for a startup’s growth, from cutting-edge design considerations to flexible infrastructure that supports future scaling.

What are the factors that define a successful biotech incubator?

A biotech incubator is a physical space that enables early-stage companies to develop their ideas and grow, with an opportunity to scale. To be a success, it needs to provide the right space in the right environment.

The critical elements that will define a successful biotech incubator are:

A space that is fit for purpose for early-stage companies (shared bench, small suites, shared equipment, and support personnel): For maximum flexibility and affordability, space should be offered on a monthly rent basis with reasonable cancellation notice (i.e. 30 days). The space would ideally have enough benches and shared desk facilities to enable that flexibility—for example, joining quickly, pausing for a few months, and very importantly, options to enable growth in the form of small suites with the same level of flexibility on rents and access to equipment.
An established support mechanism around the space (program, mentoring, access to professional services support): First, it is important to ensure enough support is in place around the space with a lab services team who can help with guidance on best practices, technical support, and introduction to potential R&D collaborators (lab tools providers, CROs). The level of engagement with a professional services network, including lawyers, IP specialists, and recruiters, will define the quality of business education and operational support available during the incubation. Finally, another softer support mechanism making biotech incubators successful is the peer network available at the facility. Having an incubator located in a wider science park is a healthy sign of a range of expertise available that can enable peer interactions at the science or business level.

Examples of such locations include Bruntwood SciTech’s Alderley Park, CityLabs, Manchester Science Park in Manchester, and Melbourn Science Park in the Cambridge cluster. These central locations enable cross-collaboration and opportunities for future growth. Together, this will increase start-ups' success rates and facilitate rapid growth.

How can startups evaluate the potential of a biotech incubator before entering into a contract?

*Evaluating a biotech incubator goes beyond facilities—engaging with alumni, assessing deal structures, and exploring networking opportunities are key to measuring its impact on funding and growth.*

When measuring the potential of a biotech incubator, start-ups should look at the facilities and equipment offered—which is often available online but always better to check in-person on site. It is also worth checking the activities (educational and social) offered, as they will be crucial for the company to get to its next step of fundraise and recruitment.

A very good way to assess an incubator's efficacy is to speak to alumni and previous occupiers for objective feedback, and to find out if any of them received any funding or progressed any further with their business as a result of the support provided by the incubator. The specific aspects to cover would be:

The deal structure with the incubator: cost of space, equipment uses, level of technical support, the conditions in case it is advertised as free
The programme and access to network: what type of activities are organised, how frequently, who is their network of partners and investors (preferably with names) and how are they involved
The post-incubation phase: where do companies grow after the incubation and is there space within the ecosystem

What specialized resources should biotech incubators provide?

Space resources are essential in a good biotech incubator. Unlike other industries, biotech needs wet labs, with these adding significantly to funds needed in the early-stage capital raise, so a good, efficient facility with support can be a game changer.

Facilities such as the Open Access Lab at Alderley Park enable early-stage customers and accelerator participants to access industry leading scientific equipment and support from Cytiva Technology, Shimazdu, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

With state-of-the-art facilities, hands-on lab services, and access to a thriving innovation ecosystem, the Open Access Lab provides everything start-ups need to establish and scale their research and business. The facilities are equipped with all the instrumentation required by an early-stage biotech or therapeutics company, with a dedicated lab workstation and hot desk write-up that include the basics equipment of shared-use fume cupboard, centrifuges, balances, water baths, pH meters, class II safety cabinets and access to a shared tissue and cell culture lab with CO2 incubator, communal -80°C and -20°C freezers, and liquid nitrogen cell storage. There is also access to shared equipment such as NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) or mass spectrometry on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Another good resource biotech incubators should provide is support with funding (pitch preparation, grant writing support, investors’ network) and, if possible, direct investment opportunities in the form of capital, discounted or free space, and lab consumables.

What are some potential mistakes startups should avoid when choosing a biotech incubator?

*The GlassHouse building in Alderley Park has been designed to engineer serendipity with a social and event space.*

Perhaps the most common mistake would be to take the first available opportunity without a long-term plan in mind. Not only is it important to do due diligence on incubators (as on investors!), but also to consider their location in the wider context of the company's growth. A good incubator will embed the startups in the local ecosystem, which should have enough breadth of capital and talent to make it easier for them to grow and stay located there.

The ‘too good to be true’ promises and equity-based offers should raise red flags. A reassuring sign is to look at incubators that are well-established and/or are part of a solid parent company or network which indicates they are here to stay.

What trends in biotech incubators can we expect to see over the next year?

The quality and flexibility of space will remain the key driver for biotech incubators, and the differentiator will come in the wrap-around support offered in accessing capital, talent, and support with operations. We are seeing more collaboration and considerations for the data aspect (servers, computing capacity etc.) of biotech research that are becoming a crucial element of success.

Another important development in the biotech incubator support space is to be more and more comprehensive in the offer provided. Where before space, access to capital, and mentoring were more fragmented, it is now established that gathering all these activities together is a better enabler to a start-up’s growth. An illustration of this trend is Bruntwood SciTech’s recent partnership announcement with Deepbridge Capital, who are supporting the upcoming Life Science Accelerator at Alderley Park with investor readiness advice and potentially up to £250,000 of Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) funding. This will allow start-ups to quickly deploy capital towards lab experiments, enabling them to generate the data needed to reach their next inflection point and fundraise. By being based in the incubator, these companies will be able to do it in a very efficient and cost-effective way, making it more appealing to investors as well.