By Keiko Morris
The East Side towers of the Alexandria Center for Life Science
have attracted giant pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer Inc.
and Eli Lilly & Co. Now the center is poised to recruit
startups to boost the city's biotechnology industry.
Accelerator Corp., a biotech investment and management firm that
has ties to the developers of the Alexandria Center, has raised $51
million from investors including Eli Lilly, Pfizer Venture
Investments and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. More than
$30 million of that likely will go toward the initial funding to
create startups at the Alexandria center.
Over the past decade, Accelerator, based in Seattle, has created
several companies around medical research, providing them with
money, management teams, scientific and business expertise, and
office and lab space. It now intends to make that happen in New
York.
The city is known for its strength in academic scientific
research. But it hasn't caught up with regions surrounding San
Francisco and Boston, which are recognized as biotech hubs.
"We wanted to have that kind of startup point here that would
enable us to generate very high quality, early-stage companies in
New York City," said Joel Marcus, chief executive of Alexandria
Real Estate Equities Inc., which owns and developed the science
campus and has built urban clusters of life-science facilities
across the U.S. He also heads Alexandria Venture Investments, the
company's strategic venture arm, which is an investor in
Accelerator.
In 2005, Alexandria won a competitive bid to develop the science
complex, which sits on city-owned land. The city envisioned the
complex spurring collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs
within the park and with academic, medical and research
institutions nearby.
The complex, which now has two towers encompassing more than
700,000 square feet, an urban farm and Tom Colicchio's Riverpark
restaurant and 'wichcraft sandwich shop, is located east of First
Avenue along East 29th Street.
Established names such as Roche Holding AG and New York
University's Neuroscience Institute have decided to move some of
their research operations to the complex. One of Pfizer's Centers
for Therapeutic Innovation has made its home there, too.
"Bringing the accelerator is another important piece of the
puzzle," said Seth Pinsky, who headed the city's Economic
Development Corp. during part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's
administration and is now an executive vice president at RXR
Realty. "When scientists have important ideas for a new business,
now they will be able to start them within the five boroughs."
Alexandria Venture Investments, along with ARCH Venture Partners
and WRF Capital are repeat venture-capital investors contributing
to this round of financing for Accelerator. Other investors include
Harris & Harris Group Inc. and the Partnership Fund for New
York City. Accelerator also has established partnerships with seven
institutions in the city, including Rockefeller University,
Columbia University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and New
York University.
"We saw a critical mass of world-class research institutions in
New York, and increasingly those institutions have become a lot
more entrepreneurial," said Thong Le, Accelerator's chief
executive. "New leadership is more commercially focused. Something
very different is happening here."
Historically, Accelerator has created one to three companies a
year, said Mr. Le. He said that he and his team would split their
time between Seattle and New York, identifying emerging research to
develop and managing the companies that eventually will be created.
Additional staff will be added to the New York operation, which has
four lab suites and shared office space in 8,400 square feet of
space.
Accelerator says it takes care of all the business work so
scientists can focus on the science.
"You need people who have been there and done that and been
successful," said Barbara Dalton, vice president for Pfizer Venture
Investments, the venture capital arm of Pfizer Inc. "We need a
greater pool of human capital to support these startups."
A lot of the legal and commercial groundwork has been
established between Accelerator and its partner institutions, which
should help speed the business-development process, said Marc
Tessier-Lavigne, president of Rockefeller University.
A typical route for scientists in New York to start a company is
to establish it near Boston or San Francisco, but momentum is
building in New York City, Mr. Tessier-Lavigne said. One example is
the city's Economic Development Corp.'s Early Stage Life Sciences
Funding Initiative. The Economic Development Corp. and
venture-capital partners including Celgene Corp., GE Ventures and
Eli Lilly have committed a minimum of $100 million to help launch
15 to 20 ventures in the life-science and biotech sectors.
Accelerator's New York operation "will enable scientists in New
York to commercialize discoveries and do so locally," Mr.
Tessier-Lavigne said. "If you have people meeting and exploring, it
will prompt people to think about applying their discoveries."
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