As of mid-October, the only sign that Cure Rare Disease would soon be moving to 4 Research Drive in Woodbridge was a label on a mailbox. That said, swathes of new-smelling carpet had been laid on the first floor of the building, and outside, workers were laying down fresh asphalt in the parking lot against […]
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As of mid-October, the only sign that Cure Rare Disease would soon be moving to 4 Research Drive in Woodbridge was a label on a mailbox.
That said, swathes of new-smelling carpet had been laid on the first floor of the building, and outside, workers were laying down fresh asphalt in the parking lot against a backdrop of the fading fall foliage on nearby West Rock Ridge.
The signs that the owner was spiffing up the building echo the excitement generated by the company in the New Haven area bioscience community. A nonprofit biotech, Cure Rare Disease was not just moving to the area – it was moving from Boston.
Not to Boston, from Boston.
Cure Rare Disease announced in September it had purchased 4 Research Drive, with plans to relocate its headquarters from Boston’s Mission Hill district and expand its R&D operation.
The building is scheduled to be renovated through the end of 2022 and into 2023, with New Haven firm Svigals+Partners overseeing the architectural work.
Built in 1999, 4 Research Drive sold for $2 million, with the transaction recorded in early September at Woodbridge City Hall. Cure Rare Disease said it would occupy 30,000 square feet in the structure and lease the rest to other biotechs.
Green chemistry company P2 Sciences currently occupies space on the second floor, along with CheminPharma and rare disease startup Krouzon Pharmaceuticals.
“We are excited to join the Woodbridge and Greater New Haven communities to deepen our R&D efforts for rare disease patients while also offering biotechnology companies the opportunity to access Class A life sciences space in the New Haven area,” said Cure Rare Disease CEO Rich Horgan.
Moving south
Even more excited about the Cure Rare Disease move are state biotech boosters, who predict that other Boston companies may soon move south.
“There’s a lot of challenges in the Boston area right now,” said Dawn Hocevar, president and CEO of BioCT, the state’s industry association. “It’s only a matter of time, as people make decisions, that they want to just kind of come over the border and still be close enough.”
In the last few months, Hocevar said, bioscience firms from Rhode Island, Georgia and North Carolina have relocated to Connecticut. In addition, a biotech from Germany is exploring a move to New Haven, and a California biotech recently moved to Fairfield County. Other Boston companies have also been exploring their options to the south, she said.
Biotech execs cite the affordability of both commercial and residential real estate in the state, in addition to access to top talent and venture capital, Hocevar said.
“Connecticut is getting more attention as we continue to grow,” Hocevar said. In addition, the fact that many bioscience executives live in Connecticut continues to be a draw, she said. “When a company hires a CEO that lives here, they may decide they want to have the company here.”
But don’t count our neighbor to the north out yet — Boston remains a world center of bioscience growth and development, with between 26 million and 59 million square feet of lab and manufacturing space expected to be added to Massachusetts’ real estate portfolio by the end of 2025, according to MassBio.
The industry group reported earlier this year that 1.7 million square feet of biotech manufacturing space is currently under construction in the state, along with 14.86 million square feet of lab space.
Even so, bioscience in the Boston area is increasingly moving out of its historic center in Cambridge’s Kendall Square to other parts of the city, or suburbs like Waltham, Watertown, Natick and Framingham, and even to relatively distant cities like Worcester.
In its recent annual report, MassBio reported that 57% of biotech VC money in the state went to companies outside Cambridge in 2022, up from 42% in 2021.
Prime biotech space within Cambridge is also increasingly on the market as some companies pare back on their workforces: Biogen put more than 263,000 square feet of office space in two buildings in Cambridge and Weston on the sublease market in August after downsizing due to the commercial flop of its Alzhemer’s drug Aduhelm.
To live near that Boston biotech hub, expect to pay an average of $740,360 for a home in Waltham, or $816,277 for a home in Natick, according to Zillow. Expect to pay a median of $900,000 to live inside the city limits as of July, according to the Boston Globe.
Rare disease focus
Of course Cure Rare Disease may be an outlier in its decision to leave the home of bad drivers, worse pizza and a so-so baseball team. As a company in the rare disease space, it may be seeking to be bought by or draw support and staff from Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease, a major player in the sector that is expanding in New Haven.
New Haven and Connecticut as a whole may want to be known as a hub for biotechs that target rare diseases as companies in the space draw increasing interest from investors. Research and licensing deals involving rare disease biotechs accelerated rapidly in the decade from 2011 to 2021, according to DealForma, a biopharma news site.
“This acceleration has been supported by the clinical and commercial success of therapies for rare diseases, as well as the increasing opportunities to directly target the root cause of rare genetic diseases with novel platforms,” according to DealForma.
And that was before AstraZeneca finalized its deal to buy New Haven-born Alexion for $39 billion, seeking to enhance its profile in immunology and precision medicines in treating rare diseases. Yes, some Alexion executives moved to Boston to join AstraZeneca colleagues at the company’s headquarters, but many researchers remained.
In April, the combined company announced plans to expand in New Haven by leasing space at the new bioscience tower currently nearing completion at 101 College St.
About 550 employees work in New Haven at Alexion AstraZeneca’s research facility at 100 College St., with lab floor space expected to double by the end of 2023 and dozens of more workers in the hiring pipeline.
Sharon Barr, Alexion’s senior vice president, head of research and product development, told New Haven Biz in July, “AstraZeneca has made a purposeful investment in our research center of excellence here in New Haven.”
Cure Rare Disease was drawn to the New Haven area on the city’s merits, said Tim Miller, director of biotech business development for AdvanceCT, the state’s business recruitment arm.
“They really made that decision on their own,” Miller said. “There wasn’t really a heavy lift from AdvanceCT or from any state organizations, and I think that speaks to the quality of the ecosystem overall.”
Connecticut’s size and easy access to top state officials is attractive for many companies, Miller said. The active role played by Yale and other state universities in startup formation is also a draw.
“I think it’s easier for us to get things done and be more flexible here,” Miller said.
“We can talk about cost of living, cost of lab space, quality of life in terms of cost of housing. But I think the biggest strategic advantage of being in Connecticut is the communication that we can offer,” Miller said. “If you want to talk to the governor, we can set you up to talk with the governor. If you want to talk to Josh Geballe at Yale Ventures, we can set that call up in a way that I think New York City or Boston can’t really do.”
Within the state, firms seeking to relocate can also tap on different hubs of expertise, Miller said. Companies like Cure Rare Disease are attracted by New Haven’s bioscience cluster, but companies with a manufacturing focus are drawn to the Greater Hartford area.
“It’s not one-size-fits-all,” Miller said. “Part of our job is to do kind of the matchmaking piece and present something that makes sense for the individual company.”
AdvanceCT and other state boosters are now looking beyond Boston and even the U.S. for potential new biotech transplants, Miller said.
“In European countries, they’re familiar with Boston, New York, but they don’t really know much about Connecticut,” Miller said. “What we do is go out and tell the Connecticut story as much as we can. And more often than not, that matches up with the strategy for a lot of the companies that we speak to.”
