Alexandria Real Estate Equities Launch First-of-Its-Kind Center to Catalyze Biotech Innovation and Manufacturing

Pasadena-based real estate investment trust (REIT) Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. has launched a first-of-its-kind consortium to catalyze advanced biological innovation and manufacturing.

As a founding member of this consortium of top-tier academic institutions, research hospitals and life science industry partners, Alexandria will have a seat on the board of directors alongside Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies and GE Healthcare Life Sciences, the company said in a statement.

The consortium will operate on the East Coast, centered in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts region.

Additional contributing members include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, MilliporeSigma and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The statement said the consortium has strategically convened to address the critical need to develop important advanced technologies, meet the region’s strong demand for increased access to next-generation cell and viral vector manufacturing production, and provide a novel and impactful workforce development platform.

These steps are necessary to help accelerate the translation of emerging technologies into transformative medicines that could eventually cure devastating diseases.

“Alexandria has been a leader in developing the Greater Boston life science cluster since we entered the market in 1997,” Joel S. Marcus, Executive Chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. “For more than 20 years, we have been driving innovation, job growth and economic diversity in this vital cluster by providing leading-edge life science companies with highly sustainable, first-in-class infrastructure, strategic venture capital and meaningful thought leadership.”

The company said its operating asset base in Greater Boston now consists of more than 6.5 million square feet of highly leased office/laboratory space, including five million square feet in the Cambridge submarket.

Alexandria’s collaborative campuses in the cluster support a diversified collection of high-quality life science and technology tenants, which include multinational pharmaceutical, public and private biotechnology, global technology and agtech companies, as well as institutional entities.

The statement added the company is targeting an additional one million rentable square feet of value-creation development projects for delivery in the area through 2022.