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HIG Capital, through its real estate arm HIG Realty, has entered a strategic partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust to develop a 170,000-square-foot applied healthcare innovation facility in Whitechapel, London. The Cavell Street project will serve as the first building within the newly established Barts Life Sciences Cluster, an initiative designed to connect clinical care, research, and commercial development.
The development will provide space for medical technology, artificial intelligence, and digital health companies to collaborate directly with clinicians and researchers from The Royal London Hospital and other Barts Health facilities. By anchoring the project within one of the UK’s largest NHS trusts, the partnership aims to shorten the path between product development and real-world clinical deployment.
Founded in 1993 by co-CEOs Sami Mnaymneh and Tony Tamer, HIG Capital manages approximately $74 billion across multiple investment strategies, including private equity, infrastructure, credit, and real estate. Under the leadership of Sami Mnaymneh, HIG Capital has steadily expanded its European real estate footprint, with a growing focus on life sciences assets located near major academic medical centers.
“We are delighted to partner with Barts Health on the Cluster’s first innovation-led development,” said Jérôme Fouillé, managing director at HIG Realty in Europe. “Cavell Street will create a new platform for global companies to collaborate directly with NHS clinicians, reinforcing the Cluster’s position as a leading centre for applied healthcare innovation.”
The Cavell Street facility is structured around an applied healthcare innovation model rather than traditional laboratory real estate. Companies based at the site will be able to work alongside practicing clinicians to refine product requirements, run pilot programs, and generate real-world clinical evidence—an increasingly important factor in regulatory approval and commercial adoption.
Barts Health operates five hospitals across East London, treating more than 7,000 patients daily and delivering over 14,000 babies each year. The trust employs more than 20,000 staff and generates annual revenues exceeding £2.5 billion. Its flagship facility, The Royal London Hospital, serves one of the most demographically diverse patient populations in the UK, offering technology developers access to clinical environments that reflect a wide range of healthcare needs.
Shane DeGaris, group chief executive of Barts Health NHS Trust, said the partnership reflects a broader effort to integrate innovation into frontline care. “Through the Barts Life Sciences Cluster, we are bringing clinicians, patients, industry, and academia together in new ways,” he said. “This first partnership project at Cavell Street begins to turn that ambition into reality.”
Life sciences facilities require significantly more technical infrastructure than conventional office developments. Laboratory and applied research spaces demand enhanced mechanical systems, higher power capacity, advanced ventilation, and strict environmental controls to meet biosafety and regulatory standards.
The Cavell Street development will incorporate these requirements while also prioritizing collaborative design. Shared spaces are intended to support interaction between researchers, clinicians, and commercial teams, reflecting the applied focus of the cluster.
HIG Realty has an established track record in European life sciences real estate. In Cambridge, the firm acquired an 85,000-square-foot innovation campus serving technology and life sciences tenants. It has also partnered with Queen Mary BioEnterprises Innovation Centre to deliver 40,000 square feet of incubator space in Whitechapel, reinforcing its long-term commitment to London’s life sciences ecosystem.
These investments align with the broader strategy articulated by Sami Mnaymneh, who has consistently emphasized proximity to clinical and academic institutions as a key driver of value creation in healthcare-focused real estate.
The Barts Life Sciences Cluster brings together multiple institutional assets in a concentrated geography. The Cavell Street site sits adjacent to The Royal London Hospital and near Queen Mary University of London, enabling close collaboration between clinical services, academic research, and commercial innovation.
Unlike research parks focused primarily on early-stage discovery, the cluster emphasizes technologies nearing clinical adoption. Target sectors include medical devices, AI-enabled diagnostics, digital health platforms, and applied therapeutics—areas where clinical validation plays a central role in development timelines.
This applied focus differentiates the cluster within the UK life sciences landscape and reflects NHS priorities around improving patient outcomes while supporting innovation-led economic growth.
From an investment perspective, life sciences real estate continues to attract institutional capital due to limited supply, specialized requirements, and resilient tenant demand. Purpose-built facilities typically command premium rents, but development costs and timelines are higher than standard commercial projects, creating barriers to entry for less experienced sponsors.
HIG Realty’s approach emphasizes value-add development and active asset management rather than stabilized, core assets. That strategy mirrors the broader investment philosophy of HIG Capital under Sami Mnaymneh and Tony Tamer, which prioritizes operational complexity and long-term fundamentals over short-term pricing arbitrage.
Lateral, a UK-based developer specializing in science and technology properties, will partner with HIG Realty on the Cavell Street project, combining local development expertise with HIG’s capital and asset management platform.
The Barts Life Sciences Cluster will drive economic progress in East London through its healthcare innovations and its ability to create employment opportunities and provide educational programs and generate permanent business operations. Life sciences positions provide higher salary rates than most jobs while enabling workers to build expertise in technical fields and healthcare-related professions.
The educational partnerships between Queen Mary University and Barts Health will create a stronger workforce pipeline which will fix existing healthcare technology and applied research skill gaps.
HIG Capital leaders have emphasized the need to connect investment returns with sustainable economic results because this principle matches Sami Mnaymneh's public statements about creating long-term value.
Construction timelines for the Cavell Street facility were not disclosed, though comparable life sciences developments typically require 18 to 30 months from groundbreaking to completion. HIG Realty will manage the asset following delivery, overseeing tenant relationships and facility operations.
For HIG Capital, the project reinforces a broader European strategy centered on healthcare-adjacent real estate where institutional partnerships, operational intensity, and long-term demand intersect. For the NHS, it represents a model for leveraging clinical assets to accelerate innovation while supporting regional economic growth.
As the first development within the Barts Life Sciences Cluster, Cavell Street will serve as a test case for whether applied healthcare innovation—embedded directly within NHS ecosystems—can deliver both clinical and commercial returns at scale.
