Pfizer Selects Alexandria Real Estate Equities' Mission Bay Life Science Cluster as the Home for Its Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center
PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 5 -- Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), Landlord of Choice to the Life Science Industry(R), today announced that Pfizer Inc. has entered into a long-term lease for approximately 100,000 square feet, with an option for an additional 50,000 square feet, at 455 Mission Bay Boulevard South, San Francisco, California. Known as the Alexandria Center for Science and Technology at Mission Bay, Pfizer will join other prominent life science entities that comprise this world-class life science cluster.
To mark this milestone in the continued development of Alexandria's Mission Bay life science cluster, Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference today at 455 Mission Bay Boulevard South, along with Corey Goodman, President of Pfizer's Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center, Joel S. Marcus, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., Stephen Richardson, Alexandria's Senior Vice President -- San Francisco Bay Area Regional Market Director, as well as many dignitaries.
Committed to establishing itself as a leader in biotherapeutics, Pfizer intends to locate its Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center in the newly leased space upon completion of the state-of-the-art facility. Launched in October 2007, Pfizer's Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center is an important entrepreneurial business unit reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, charged with translating advances in biotherapeutics into new medicines. The Center is focused on discovering new medicines, as well as securing new technologies and research tools that can be used across all of Pfizer's therapeutic areas. The Center works in a highly collaborative manner both with Pfizer Global Research and Development, and with the academic, biotechnology and venture communities, not only to focus on delivering new compounds for Pfizer but also on incubating emerging companies with new innovative technologies. The Center has already established collaborations with researchers at Mission Bay, including its collaboration with the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and its worldwide collaborative agreement with Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc.
"Pfizer's decision to locate their Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center in Mission Bay is a significant win for San Francisco and is a clear indication that Mission Bay is one of the nation's premier life science centers," said Mayor Newsom. "San Francisco offers companies like Pfizer a world-class urban innovation district, anchored by the nation's pre-eminent biomedical university, and unparalleled opportunities for collaboration and access to the very best talent that the United States and the world have to offer."
"We are very proud and honored with Pfizer's decision to locate one of its newest and most promising engines of growth, the Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center, in our dynamic, diversified world-class life science cluster at Mission Bay. The selection of Mission Bay is a testament to its unique attributes as an immensely rich and fertile environment for leading- edge scientific discovery, a highly sophisticated pool of management talent and an extremely strong and smart capital base," said Joel S. Marcus. "Alexandria's pioneering strategic approach is to create and foster the dynamic growth of life science clusters that bring together, in a highly collaborative fashion, prestigious academic institutions, established, emerging and dynamic commercial entities, and support their ability to rapidly translate critical health care discoveries which benefit humankind. Today, the strategic imperative for creating value in the research and development realm is clearly based on collaborations and partnerships, rather than isolated at internally focused remote campuses. Mission Bay exemplifies these positive attributes in an extraordinary fashion."
Alexandria's Center for Science and Technology at Mission Bay has quickly established itself as one of the most important life science clusters globally. Alexandria has been deeply involved in recruiting some of the most important life science entities to Mission Bay. The breadth and depth of entities range from pre-eminent pharmaceutical companies and first-in-class emerging companies, to prestigious, top-tier life science venture capital firms, to leading edge not-for-profit research institutes, including impressive names such as Celgene Corporation, Merck & Co., Inc., Presidio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc., Ion Torrent Systems, Inc. and the J. David Gladstone Institutes. These organizations complement the substantial presence of UCSF and related institutes as described below.
At the heart of Mission Bay is UCSF, one of the nation's most prolific generators of life science commercial enterprises based upon its intellectual property and talent pool. At least 60 California biotechnology companies -- including two of the largest, Genentech, Inc. and Chiron Corporation (now a subsidiary of Novartis AG) -- have been successfully launched by UCSF faculty, alumni or by their scientific inventors. These 60 companies, together, employ more than 13,000 people. In addition, scientists from these companies have spun off dozens of promising start-ups. UCSF's expansion of major research functions to its Mission Bay campus serves as a hub for basic scientific inquiry and a meeting place for academics from around the world. The wide range of UCSF's sophisticated laboratories built for the 21st Century include the Molecular Design Institute, the Center for Advanced Technology, as well as significant efforts in structural and chemical biology, molecular, cell and developmental biology, advanced microscopy, neurology and cardiology. The California Institute for Quantitative Bioscience (QB3) features unique interdisciplinary programs at Mission Bay, including bioengineering and biotechnology, bioinformatics and computational biology, experimental genomics, proteomics and biochemistry. The J. David Gladstone Institutes offer three compelling disease-focused institutes conducting important work in the realm of cardiovascular disease, virology and immunology, and neurology. Finally, the UCSF Mission Bay hospital campus is well underway in the design phase, and will initially offer 280 beds in an integrated facility to serve women, children and cancer patients. The overriding emphasis of this array of diverse life science entities is to translate research discoveries into viable commercial products to solve critical unmet medical needs.
Stephen Richardson remarked, "We are delighted with Pfizer's decision to join its life science colleagues at this most important cluster location at Mission Bay. Pfizer's strategic vision will strengthen the efforts of the many people and entities it interacts with, as well as provide a durable platform for its future success." Mr. Richardson further elaborated on Alexandria's Center for Science and Technology at Mission Bay, stating, "We have worked closely with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the City of San Francisco in the development of these class-A office/laboratory facilities which offer Alexandria's unique proprietary products. This strategy has yielded tremendous success and has infused the private sector squarely into the highly interactive and collaborative scientific commercialization effort so easily evident at Mission Bay."
About the Alexandria Center for Science and Technology at Mission Bay
The Alexandria Center for Science and Technology at Mission Bay when completed will be comprised of 13 Class-A facilities totaling approximately 2.7 million square feet suitable for the most demanding requirements of any scientific or technology enterprise. The Alexandria Center is organized into four discrete but highly interactive and collaborative campuses: the north campus includes the 455 Mission Bay Boulevard project leased to Pfizer; the east campus is a "super block" that is perhaps the most desirable site on the entire west coast, featuring the ability to accommodate a corporate headquarters facility of more than one million square feet; the south campus is directly across the street from the UCSF hospital complex and certain to be an important location for physicians, clinicians and translational researchers; and the west campus features a wide range of unique client tenant spaces, including Alexandria's Science Hotel(R) and the "Sand Hill Road of Mission Bay" on the 5th floor of 1700 Owens Street, populated with many of the industry's leading venture investors.
Pfizer's lease at 455 Mission Bay Boulevard South is an important milestone in the unfolding success story at Mission Bay. Alexandria's pioneering facility in this cluster, 1700 Owens Street, containing approximately 156,000 square feet, is now nearly fully leased. The second facility, 1500 Owens Street, containing approximately 158,000 square feet, has attracted UCSF's orthopedic clinic and related research and translational unit as its anchor tenant, and is expected to achieve similar success. Alexandria's Center for Science and Technology at Mission Bay has quickly established itself as one of the most important life science destinations and, along with its prominent neighbors, has established an extraordinary environment for propelling the commercial life science sector to another level of productivity and success.
About Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., Landlord of Choice to the Life Science Industry(R), is the largest owner and pre-eminent first-in-class international real estate investment trust focused principally on science-driven cluster formation through the ownership, operation, management, redevelopment, selective development and acquisition of properties containing technical environments, including office/laboratory space. Alexandria is the leading provider of high-quality environmentally sustainable real estate, technical infrastructure, services and capital to the broad and diverse life science industry. Client tenants include institutional (universities and independent not-for-profit institutions), pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, product, service, and translational entities, as well as government agencies. Alexandria's operating platform is based on the principle of "clustering," with assets and operations located in key life science markets. As of March 31, 2008, our asset base approximated 13.3 million rentable square feet consisting of 159 properties approximating 11.7 million rentable square feet (including spaces undergoing active redevelopment) and properties undergoing ground-up development approximating 1.6 million rentable square feet. In addition, our asset base will enable us to grow to approximately 22.3 million square feet through future ground-up development approximating 9.0 million square feet of office/laboratory space.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.