A £500 million medical laboratory that will house 1,500 experts in fields such as those of cancer, stem cells and flu is to be built in the heart of London.

Hurdles to the world-class hub were cleared after the Government agreed yesterday to sell three acres next to St Pancras Station to four of the country’s leading research organisations for an estimated £85 million, despite reportedly receiving higher rival bids.

Work on the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation, details of which were disclosed by The Times in October, will begin once planning permission is given, with the consortium hoping for an opening date of 2013.

Gordon Brown’s announcement today will be greeted enthusiastically by scientists, who say that the centre will provide unique opportunities for translating basic biological discoveries into therapies with clinical and commercial applications. The new hub is being backed by the government Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and University College London. It will provide a new home for the National Institute for Medical Research, the World Influenza Centre, which studies pandemics, and Cancer Research laboratories. The hub will also house the medical technology divisions of Cancer Research and the Medical Research Council. Other fields of research will include genetics, neuroscience and infectious diseases such as HIV.

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the MRC chief executive, said: “The [hub] will help people to live longer, healthier lives — in London, the UK and across the world.” Mr Brown said that it “will maintain Britain’s position at the forefront of global medical research”.

He added: “By taking groundbreaking scientific discoveries right through to treatment, I expect that the 1,500 staff who will be part of this project will develop many of the cures, vaccines and drugs from which the NHS and its patients will benefit in years to come.”

Local residents have opposed the project, demanding that the land be used for social housing instead. Camden council has awarded provisional consent only for a “mixed development” that includes community facil-ities or affordable homes, which are not part of the laboratory plan. Keith Moffitt, the leader of the council, said: “We will be very disappointed if the proposed plan ignores this brief.”

There are further concerns about the safety of siting a laboratory that will handle deadly germs such as the influenza virus in central London, though scientists say its biosecurity safeguards will be as tough as anywhere in the world.

It will also house an animal research facility, raising fears that it may become a target for anti-vivisection campaigners, who have intimidated contractors working on an animal laboratory at Oxford University.

The land was once earmarked for expansion of the British Library, and was until recently leased to the Channel Tunnel terminus project.

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