Excerpt from a story originally published in the Boston Globe.
In the 10 years since Vertex Pharmaceuticals moved from Cambridge to a sprawling complex on the waterfront, the Seaport has become perhaps the second-most coveted location for Massachusetts’ world-famous biopharma industry, behind Kendall Square.
Indeed, “Kendall Square Jr.” is how Ben Bradford, head of external affairs at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, an industry trade group, describes the neighborhood. It features homegrown startups and the US headquarters of multinational drug makers.
Among the companies located there are Alexion Pharmaceuticals (the rare disease unit of the British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca), CRISPR Therapeutics, Ginkgo Bioworks, Ratio Therapeutics, and Servier Pharmaceuticals. In addition, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. has invested $700 million to create a genetic medicine research center and laboratories in a 12-story building under construction along Fort Point Channel. And EMD Serono, the American drug development arm of Germany’s Merck KGaA, plans to move its headquarters from the South Shore town of Rockland to the Seaport this summer.
Foundation’s new headquarters was developed by WS Development of Chestnut Hill and completed this year. Foundation has leased all 16 floors in the $350 million building but plans to sublet four of them, or about 120,000 square feet, to tenants yet to be identified.