US genetics powerhouse Illumina is pressing ahead with a new European headquarters in Cambridge UK, shrugging off unsubstantiated takeover speculation.

Work on a new £60 million facility at Granta Park – set to employ up to 500 staff – could begin late this week or early next, Business Weekly can disclose.

And Granta Park director Doug Cuff, who is spearheading impressive development at the life science and technology hub for US owner BioMed Realty, says global appetite for space in the Cambridge cluster continues unabated by either market rumour or Brexit.

With Grade A laboratory and office space at a premium in the in-demand Cambridge cluster, Granta Park is sitting on a veritable honeypot. Illumina and fellow US company Gilead are each developing major expansion space at Granta Park.

Cuff tells me there is currently 250,000 sq ft under development and reports continuing international interest. Illumina has seen its share price spike on unsubstantiated reports that it has received a $30 billion bid by compatriot Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which is headquartered in Massachusetts.

Leading analysts are sceptical about any bid for Illumina from Thermo Fisher Scientific succeeding because of immense regulatory hurdles given their respective positions in the genome sequencing space.

Illumina owns two Cambridge companies – Solexa and BlueGnome – and has signed a 20-year lease for a 155,000 sq ft new research building at Granta Park. The Solexa deal, acquiring genome automation technology, racked up to around $650 million while genomics diagnostics specialist BlueGnome was acquired for an undisclosed, but considerably more modest, sum.

The new state-of-the-art, build-to-suit laboratory building at Granta Park will serve as the new European headquarters for Illumina. Doug Cuff says his California-headquartered company sees a bright future in Cambridge for Illumina and other life science players.

He said: “I was at Illumina’s corporate headquarters last week and its plans for Cambridge are proceeding at a pretty good clip. They are very bullish about Cambridge and it is full steam ahead. We expect them to be in situ early in 2018.” Gilead, a research-based biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and commercialises innovative medicines in areas of unmet medical need, is well advanced with a new-build £28 million facility at Granta Park.

The expansion increases Gilead’s lease on the space to 93,000 sq ft as it progresses a portfolio of products and pipeline of investigational drugs including treatments for HIV/AIDS, liver diseases, cancer, inflammatory and respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular conditions.

Cuff said the project was going “incredibly well” and Gilead should be fully operational from the expanded facility by June 2017. Granta Park is a partnership between TWI and BioMed Realty offering dedicated facilities on a site spanning 120 acres.

Cuff tells me that TWI will additionally be marketing space for pre-lets for relevant tech companies. He sees echoes in Cambridge UK’s emergence as an in-demand centre for global life science in the powerplay by Cambridge Massachusetts 10 years ago.

“Cambridge Mass pushed itself to fill a space between MIT and Harvard and succeeded; since then the market has exploded and I believe Cambridge UK and Granta Park are in a great position to exploit clear and demonstrable international demand for space in this region.”

Cuff believes the vote for Brexit and Takeda’s decision to close its Cambridge research facilities will have negligible impact on the continued growth of the cluster. “Takeda’s decision came as a surprise but it covers a relatively limited footprint in the Cambridge cluster; also, just as with Pfizer’s downscaling last year, the life science sector is fantastic at recycling jobs. People laid off by Takeda, as with Pfizer, will find jobs with other buoyant companies locally.

“There is a strong appetite among growing companies in life sciences locally to snap up talent being disposed of elsewhere. Cambridge has a world-class university and a global reputation for producing amazing science & technology talent.

“The predominant factor in the local life science market is one of growth – from companies such as Illumina, Gilead and AstraZeneca. These companies come to Cambridge for the talent on the doorstep, emanating from the university and spin-off companies.

“And the university has been around stimulating the economy, producing science & technology innovation and breeding talent for a lot longer than the European Union.

“In sectors other than life sciences you have seen companies like Apple and Amazon coming into Cambridge and pushing ahead – so Brexit may have created uncertainty but has not halted expansion strategies.

“BioMed Realty is used to facilitating major growth across science & technology sectors and we see no let-up in demand for Cambridge UK space. The lure of the cluster is enhanced when you see a $31 billion offer come in for ARM from SoftBank in Japan.

“One can envisage nothing but a huge potential payback for Cambridge from the convergence of healthcare, bioinformatics and genomics technologies – and from cross-pollination between life science, the Internet of Things and Big Data.”