For the past 25 years, the public and private sectors have worked together to establish New York City as a global leader in life sciences research and innovation. Thanks to that coordinated effort, the city was able to respond to COVID-19 efficiently and effectively, becoming a model for other urban areas as COVID-19 cases peaked across the U.S.—and showcasing a burgeoning life sciences industry in the city that’s poised for future growth.
Under the guidance of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), life sciences companies came together to churn out personal protective equipment (PPE)—4.2 million gowns, 8.4 million face shields— plus 1 million COVID test kits that were delivered to hospitals, clinics and community testing sites.
“It was a tangible example of how partnerships could help solve problems. We’re going to see a lot more of that out of New York City,” says Doug Thiede, senior vice president of life sciences and healthcare at NYCEDC.
Now it’s time to look to the future of life sciences—and there’s no better location than New York City. The city offers a diverse talent pool, premiere academic and medical institutions and a varied healthcare-delivery infrastructure that has encouraged life sciences stakeholders from around the world to establish and grow their presence here. And the city continues to make substantial investments to solidify its lead in meeting the needs of life sciences innovators.
Ample space for biopharma startups
The life sciences sector in New York City is on pace to raise $1B in venture funding in 2020, up from just $40 million ten years ago. In addition to NYC’s outstanding talent and funding, the city is rich with life science real estate offerings across the five boroughs.
For example, as part of NYCEDC’s LifeSci NYC, the city’s $500 million investment in life sciences, local investment firm Deerfield Management is redeveloping a 12-story building in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. The life sciences campus, named “CURE.,” will open in 2021 and provide office space, wet labs and programming to support healthcare and biotech startups.
Deerfield continues to foster the life sciences sector in many ways, including talent development. The firm is working with City University of New York and NYCEDC to support science internships. “So while we were excited about Deerfield as a provider of lab space for companies as they grow and expand, we are equally excited about them for their commitment to New York City talent development,” Thiede says.
The CURE. campus will enhance the large and growing collection of life science properties in New York City. They include Innolabs in Long Island City, Queens, which offers more than 260,000 square feet of commercial life sciences space, and BioLabs@NYULangone and JLABS@NYC, two incubators in SoHo.
JLABS was the original landing pad for Volastra Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing novel therapies to treat metastatic cancers. The company was founded by Drs. Lewis Cantley and Olivier Elemento of Weill Cornell Medicine, in collaboration with Dr. Samuel Bakhoum at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Volastra, which launched in January of 2020 with $12M in financing, recently expanded into its own dedicated 11,000 square foot lab space in West Harlem.
“We have invested in enabling companies to have different areas throughout New York City where they can continue to develop their science and hire New Yorkers to drive their success,” Thiede says.
A vibrant and growing life sciences ecosystem
New York life sciences companies continue to step up with solutions to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
They include Xylyx Bio, a Columbia University spinout that’s inventing drug-testing platforms made from biomaterials that mimic specific organs and tissues in the human body. The company is housed in the SUNY Downstate incubator, New York’s longest standing wet lab incubator. This year it pivoted to address the pandemic, developing a lung fibrosis assay that developers of COVID-19 drugs can use to predict the potential efficacy of their compounds.
To help address the ventilator shortage, NYCEDC convened a partnership with researchers, local innovators and public health experts to develop a “bridge” ventilator in less than a month. The low-cost, easy-to-manufacture automatic resuscitator, called Spiro Wave, came to life as a joint project that brought together key industries in New York: Newlab (urban tech), 10XBeta (design and engineering), Boyce (advanced manufacturing) and Nemedio (medical devices).
And in September 2020, the city launched the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL), a facility dedicated to processing COVID-19 tests within 24 to 48 hours for NYC Health + Hospitals. NYCEDC led the effort in tandem with Brooklyn-based Opentrons, a life sciences robotics company. The effort brought together experts in genetics and diagnostics, including NYU’s Institute for Systems Genetics, to develop technology that greatly accelerated the pace of testing in the city.
Now NYCEDC is overseeing a competition to accelerate the development and deployment of rapid COVID-19 tests. More than 30 proposals had been submitted by the end of October.
Through their continued investment and partnership, these companies are leading the way for the life sciences industry in NYC. Organizations like NYCEDC and their Life Sci NYC program will remain integral this ecosystem by connecting researchers and institutions to the resources needed for biotechnology commercialization, unlocking space for life sciences companies to grow within the city, and building a pipeline of talent to fill the workforce needed to support these companies across the five boroughs.
“It’s an exciting time for New York City to be in this industry” Thiede says.
Learn more about how to get involved in NYC life sciences opportunities at lifesci.nyc.