Life Sciences

Comfort Zone: A peek inside a Philadelphia public health nonprofit’s shift in culture, location and workspace design offers a glimpse into its employees’ and its city’s future.

In late April a joint-venture partnership of Advance Realty and Boston-based CrossHarbor Capital Partners, LLC, announced that it had acquired the former Sanofi U.S. Research and Development Campus in Bridgewater, N.J., located on U.S. Highway 202/206 in Bridgewater Township.

A burgeoning life-sciences cluster in Cobb County, Ga., grew even larger in recent months as two rapidly expanding bio-medical companies moved into new addresses just north of Atlanta.

Boston is still the No. 1 life sciences cluster in the country. A cluster of reports and projects only reinforces the area’s leadership, even as the area’s leaders do the same in another context.

Biotechnology in Costa Rica has considerable political support, being one of the seven areas of the 2011-2014 Science, Technology and Innovation Plan.

Monsanto Co. on April 23 announced plans to bring together its St. Louis-based R&D team on one campus when it completes a more than $400-million expansion at its Chesterfield Village Research Center.

Two announcements on Monday and Thursday of this week signaled a fundamental strategic and physical shift for biopharma giant AstraZeneca, including the establishment of a new corporate headquarters in a new UK location; the shift of small molecule and biologics R&D to three strategic centers around the world; and an eventual overall headcount reduction of 5,050 between now and the end of 2016.

One year after Alcoa announced the permanent closure of a smelter in the ultimate company town, Alcoa, Tenn., is on the rise, thanks to a slew of companies finding what they need in the region that now likes to call itself "Innovation Valley."

In Pensacola, Fla., a research institute that has been nationally recognized for its groundbreaking work is teaching the lame to walk and the blind to see.

When the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP) first convened in
1880, present in the room were Andrew Carnegie, George Westinghouse, George Ferris, Alcoa founder Alfred E. Hunt and William Metcalf, an engineer and draftsman with Fort Pitt Foundry and Crescent Steel Co. who was also the president of the Duquesne Club, a premier social club that still exists today in downtown Pittsburgh.

The nation's largest provider of advanced wound-care services found the perfect prescription for growth in Jacksonville, Fla.

If you’re a French contract research organization looking to grow in North America, then Montreal and Newark appear to be prime places to splash down.

According to Michael E. Porter’s Cluster Mapping Project at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, medical devices were one of only nine industry clusters to create a net positive total of jobs between 2005 and 2010, creating 11,011 jobs in the U.S. even as the overall net change in jobs during that span was down by more than 1.9 million positions.

Globalization has brought about enormous opportunities for businesses to become more competitive by reaching new work forces and new markets. The practice of moving production and even R&D to low-cost environments is no longer new and is fairly common.

The 2012 Jones Lang LaSalle Life Sciences Cluster Report released earlier this month identified and ranked a total of 21 U.S. cities according to weighted scores for total employment in high-tech research and hospital/medical fields; life science establishments; National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding; and venture capital funding.

Construction is set to begin this month on Mann Research Center’s first phase in the Tradition Center for Innovation (TCI), reflecting the high demand for space within the planned 44,000-sq.-ft. (4,088-sq.-m.) Mann Medical Office Building (Mann Medical One).

A high-growth medical device company is finding the right prescription for expansion in Mesa, Ariz. Ulthera, which makes ultrasound devices for face-lifts and neck-lifts, is moving from 12,000 sq. ft. (1,115 sq. m.) of space into a new 32,000-sq.-ft. (2,973-sq.-m.) headquarters in Mesa, a booming Phoenix suburb.

The stricter regulatory climate governing suppliers of dietary supplements has been a boon for Vitality Works, a liquid herbal extracts company based in Albuquerque, N.M.

Puerto Rico’s recently changed tax scheme is just one of many topics under the microscope after an election that has produced a new governor and a groundbreaking call for a status upgrade.

The largest integrated health care system in the United States is in the midst of the biggest infrastructure improvement program it’s seen since the end of World War II.

Change and uncertainty are a reality these days, but in the case of Saskatchewan biosciences, the only uncertainty is whether we can grow fast enough to take full advantage of opportunities.

It was telling last month when both Arizona State University in Tempe and the University of Arizona in Tucson issued “Pardon Our Dust” press releases as students returned to matriculate. Those two institutions are creating plenty of dust and economic activity with new building projects as they both reach record enrollment totals.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals made big news last year with its headquarters project at Fan Pier in Boston and not one but two FDA approvals in the course of eight months.

After looking at some 50 sites, Roche last week announced it would bring 200 jobs to the new center at the Alexandria Center for Life Science – New York City, formerly known as East River Science Park.