The UK government has signed a long-term investment agreement with Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala to invest £1bn in UK life sciences businesses to boost post-pandemic recovery, fDi Intelligence reported on Friday.

Mubadala, with assets under management of about $232 billion, committed to investing £800 million over five years. The UK’s Life Sciences Investment Programme will add £200 million to the Mubdala funds, the UK Office for Investment (OfI) said in a note on March 24.

“The deal is part of a sovereign investment partnership (SIP) between the UK and the UAE. The SIP is the first of its kind for the UK and is aimed at enhancing the next generation of UK life science companies. The deal strengthens UK-UAE trade and investment ties, and fosters a future-focused relationship between the two countries within innovation-led sectors such as energy transition and infrastructure,” the note by the OfI explained.

The SIP will work as a mechanism to identify suitable investment opportunities in the life sciences sector, an industry which turns over £80 billion per year in the UK and employs more than 250,000 people, according to the report.

fDi Markets tracked roughly 17,000 jobs created by UAE greenfield project announcements in the UK between 2003 and 2020. The inward stock of FDI in the UK from the UAE was £5.5 billion at the end of 2019, the report showed.

Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, managing director and group CEO of Mubadala, said in the note: “Mubadala is already a long-term investor in UK innovation and growth, and our new partnership now provides a platform to allocate stable capital to priority sectors as part of a future-focused investment relationship.”

The OfI and Mubadala will work together to identify commercially viable opportunities for investment in the sector.

“Attracting and enabling strategic international investors to operate effectively in the UK is vital to job creation and our growth as a world leader in life sciences, clean growth, tech and innovation,” says UK minister for investment Gerry Grimstone.

Mubadala has a global portfolio of research initiatives in more than 50 countries to which the UK industries now have access by way of this partnership, the note highlights.