Bristol Myers Squibb has taken out a lease on a 360,000-square-foot site in Massachusetts. Securing the facility, which is walking distance from Kendall Square, will enable Bristol Myers to combine its two existing Cambridge R&D sites into a single location.
Today, Bristol Myers works out of facilities in Kendall Square and another location a few miles away from the biotech hot spot. Bristol Myers works on cancer resistance and immune-related and fibrotic diseases at the two sites, performing activities related to discovery biology, translational science and chemistry research. That is set to change in the coming years.
This week, property developer DivcoWest named (PDF) Bristol Myers Squibb as the latest company to sign up to take space at its Cambridge Crossing development. The 43-acre site, which is about one mile from Kendall Square, used to be a rail yard but is being converted into a new home for biopharma.
Bristol Myers’ contract with DivcoWest gives it a lease on a building at 250 Water Street. The building is still under construction. DivcoWest expects to finish the build late in 2022, enabling Bristol Myers to move in during the first half of 2023.
The contract follows other deals that gave Sanofi, Cerevel Therapeutics and Philips space at the site. Sanofi is taking a similar approach to Bristol Myers, signing a 900,000-square-foot lease to enable it to consolidate 2,700 employees currently housed across Massachusetts at two new buildings in the Cambridge Crossing development. Sanofi signed its lease late in 2018.
Like Bristol Myers, Sanofi is leaving a facility in Kendall Square to take up the space at Cambridge Crossing. Sanofi is set to start subleasing its Kendall Square site to bluebird bio next year.
There remains room for more biopharma companies to join Bristol Myers and Sanofi at Cambridge Crossing. DivcoWest has signed leases on 1.7 million square feet of commercial space but still has 110,000 square feet available at 250 Water Street and 600,000 square feet in two planned buildings.