London Mayor Boris Johnson launched a new initiative, entitled MedCity, which has the support of some of the U.K.'s senior academics and business people. The goal is to transform the London-Oxford-Cambridge life sciences sector into a world-beating power cluster.

The new organization is tasked with attracting life sciences corporations large and small to the “golden triangle” formed by the three cities, facilitating collaboration between them and the U.K. academic research base, and reinforcing specialist infrastructure so that the region becomes one of the premier, interconnected clusters for life science research, development, manufacturing, and commercialization.

The other key goals are to create jobs, attract billions of pounds of investment, and help spur the discovery of novel treatments to tackle disease. About £2.92 million ($4.89 million) is being invested in the project by England's university funding body—the Higher Education Funding Council for England. This is on top of the £1.2 million ($2.01 million) funding confirmed by the Mayor of London's office.

MedCity has been established by the Mayor of London and King's Health Partners, Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre, and UCLPartners with help from the both the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

“MedCity will span everything from research to clinical trials to manufacturing, across biotech, med tech, and health tech,” said Mayor Johnson. “I am in no doubt that having the whole ‘chain’ from small spinoffs to massive companies doing their research, clinical development, and manufacturing here in London and the south east can be as important to our economy as the financial services sector is today.”

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