Ex-Vertex Digs Get Two New Biotech Tenants in CRISPR and Synologic

Ex-Vertex Digs Get Two New Biotech Tenants in CRISPR and Synologic
July 30, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A 340,000 square foot facility that formerly hosted Vertex Pharmaceuticals is continuing to attract smaller biotech companies, the Boston Business Journal reported this morning.

CRISPR Therapeutics and Synlogic Inc. have both secured space in the facility. They will join RaNA Therapeutics, a 25-employee preclinical biotech headed by Ron Renaud, the former CEO of Idenix Pharmaceuticals , as the first tenants of the facility. Earlier this year, BioMed Realty, which focuses on life science and biotech properties, rebranded the three buildings that formerly housed Vertex as the Sidney Research Campus.

Vertex vacated the space in 2013 when it moved a few miles into Boston.

In April CRISPR announced it will create a research and development center in Cambridge, Mass. CRISPR stands for clustered, regularly interspaced palindromic repeats. Along with the enzyme called Cas9, or CRISPR-associated protein 9, the technology platform is a way to turn a bacterial defense mechanism against viruses into a tool to edit genes.

Synlogic employs 15 people. Funded with $35 million in investments from Atlas Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the company’s focus is developing engineered bacteria and viruses to fight disease.

Bill Kane, BioMed’s vice president, told the Boston Business Journal that smaller biotech companies are finding it difficult to acquire space that meets their needs. Out of the 36 companies seeking lab space in Cambridge, 28 company officials said they were looking for “80,000 square feet of space or less.” BioMed is converting some of the space to “universal flex labs” which will be able to expand to meet the demands of the biotech companies as they grow, Kane told the Journal.

On its website, BioMed outlines the characteristics of properties biotech companies are looking for, including location near research facilities and universities and “high quality facilities that meet their specialized laboratory and office requirements.”

Those characteristics fit the Boston area well, as the greater Boston metropolitan area continues to lead the way as the hub of the east coast’s pharmaceutical and biotech industries. More companies, such as IBM Corporation’s new Watson Health Unit, or Beryllium, locate their headquarters and satellite offices to the area.

One of the reasons for the greater Boston area becoming such a major hub in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries is the plethora of research universities in the area. Boston also has one of the highest educated workforces in the nation. Not only are smaller companies calling the Boston area home, but many larger and established pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer , GlaxoSmithKline , Takeda Pharmaceuticals , Sanofi , Biogen and Novartis AG have presences in the city. The close proximity of so many pharmaceutical and university laboratories provides researchers and scientists easy access to clinical studies and building partnerships between companies.

In April, Massachusetts-based Biogen said it will stay in Cambridge for the long term, after biotech leasing company BioMed Realty Trust, Inc. announced Thursday that it just signed a 10-year lease with the biotech for approximately 80,000 square feet of Class A laboratory and office space at the company's 301 Binney Street property.

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