Eli Lilly Grabs Space in Already-Crowded Kendall Square, Plans to Hire 30+ Scientists
May 6, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company announced today that it will build a new drug delivery and device innovation center in Cambridge, Mass. The Lilly Cambridge Innovation Center will be located in Kendall Square, a prime location for biotech and life science companies.
“The Lilly Cambridge Innovation Center complements a deliberate push by the company to be an industry leader in providing convenient, reliable drug delivery and device innovation,” said John Lechleiter, president and chief executive officer of Lilly, in a statement. “Locating in Cambridge is an important strategic move for achieving this goal, as it provides us access to a concentration of high-caliber academic institutions, cutting-edge life science and technology companies, and some of the world’s leading talent.”
BioSpace reported in March that San Diego-based BioMed Realty Trust, Inc. (BMR), as a results of Vertex Pharmaceuticals terminating a lease on three properties in Cambridge, currently had approximately 313,000 square feet of space available for life science companies.
BioMed owns more than three million square feet of laboratory and office space in the Boston/Cambridge area. Included in that property is a facility that Baxter Healthcare Corporation ’s spinoff, Baxalta, will be using on Kendall Street.
“Tenants requiring 30,000 to 100,000 square feet in Cambridge are struggling to find available lab space,” said Bill Kane, senior vice president of BioMed Realty in an statement, “and we see venture capital and IPO activity driving aggregate demand for 1.3 million square feet of new lab space over the next three years in Cambridge.”
The Baxter building is located on Kendall Street, a 200,000 square-foot facility that is also used by Aveo Pharmaceuticals. In a March announcement, a Baxter spokesman indicated that center would eventually employ about 400 people.
In April, Amgen , headquartered in Thousand Oaks, Calif., announced it was going to expand its presence in its Cambridge facilities, as well as in South San Francisco, part of a 100-person staff expansion. It indicated 75 new hires would be at its Kendall Square location.
As food for thought, The Boston Globe ran an article on April 15 looking at Kendall Square and Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. and the explosion of life sciences and biotech companies in that area, which was part of a successful master plan. Other companies in the area include Biogen, Inc., Genzyme Corporation and Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. . But here’s the kicker—according to the article, in 2014, 60 percent of the drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were developed by tenants of Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Lilly expects to start construction immediately with plans to occupy the building by the end of the year. As part of the growth, it expects to hire approximately 30 scientists and engineers to work at the center initially, and over time increase the staff by 25 percent.
Will Hungry Pfizer Make a Play for Struggling GlaxoSmithKline?
Almost a year after its $119 billion offer for AstraZeneca PLC fell apart in the face of massive opposition from regulators and internal dissent, global drugmaker Pfizer Inc. is once again being floated as a potential buyer of another marquee-name British pharmaceutical company: GlaxoSmithKline . We at BioSpace want to know your thoughts: With cash to burn, will Pfizer go hunting for Glaxo?