Teesside’s burgeoning biotech industry has been named as key player in a £4bn economic masterplan. Jez Davison reports.

TWO months ago regeneration chiefs tabled one of the most ambitious masterplans that Teesside has ever seen.

Their vision for a £4bn enterprise zone network employing 43,000 people will take at least two decades to come fully into focus.

But already they have identified key growth sectors - renewable energy, digital, petrochemical and biotechnology among them - that can turn those dreams into hard cash.

In truth, all four industries are powering the local economy right now and the plan is to build on these prized assets.

Each zone will be based around a particular area of expertise and two hubs - Queens Meadow in Hartlepool and the Belasis Hall Technology Park in Billingham - have been earmarked as centres of excellence in biotechnology.

Teesside has already made great strides in that field and is home to two cutting-edge biotech centres that have turned heads at home and abroad.

The Wilton-based National Industrial Biotechnology Facility has attracted £12m of Government cash to fast-track commercialisation of breakthrough green products such as perfume and next-generation biofuels.

Meanwhile the UK’s flagship Printable Electronics Technology Centre, based in Sedgefield, is exploring the potential of exciting biotech products from bendable sheet lighting to wafer-thin portable TV screens.

The presence of NIBF and PETEC have helped to attract several powerful biotech companies to Teesside.

Sedgefield-based Kromek has spent several years developing groundbreaking airport scanning technology that can detect explosives in liquids.

It has also developed X-ray imaging for the medical, industrial inspection and defence markets.

Meanwhile Cambridge Research Biochemicals, already part of the emerging Belasis biotech hub, makes peptides and antibodies for use in pharmaceutical and biotechnology research across the world.