Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com • Worcester Business Journal • 2 022 Economic Forecast 37 ngrid.com Connect with us on We're investing and innovating for our communities energy future. Groups Have More Fun and Save! Did you know? The Hanover Theatre offers discounts on most shows for groups of 10 or more. No deposit required! Contact Amy at 508.471.1689 or amy@thehanovertheatre.org. in the manufacturing of drugs, has caught on in some ways in Central Massachusetts, including in Worcester, where WuXi Biologics is building a $60-million biomanufacturing facility and Galaxy Life Sciences is spending $50 million to build a similar facility without a tenant lined up. In Devens, the drugmaker Bris- tol Myers Squibb is undertaking a 244,000-square-foot expansion of its existing manufacturing campus to make a lymphoma drug, and Boston devel- oper King Street Properties is planning to start work this spring on a $500-mil- lion, 700,000-square-foot complex for drug-making operations. Mini-cluster: Worcester is trying to carve out its own niche in biotech Located adjacent to the Polar Park baseball stadium in Worcester, the planned Le Field Building is a $16-mil- lion symbol of the ambitious plans in the city for the life sciences as a catalyst for its ever-evolving development efforts. "at's a massive investment, and it's a massive thing to have life sciences right in the middle of Worcester. It'll be pretty revolutionary in how the city approaches and views life sciences," said David Sullivan, economic development and business recruitment associate at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Com- merce. "is is a big part of our city, and it's right in the middle because of that." e Le Field Building, which is tentatively slated for a 2023 opening, is one of three planned eight-figure developments meant to further grow Worcester's foothold in the life sciences field, which already includes UMass Chan Medical School, a major facility of Illinois-based AbbVie, and the 36-year- old incubator Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives. e other major planned developments are both at the 46-acre Reactory biomanufacturing campus: the $60-million facility from China-based WuXi Biologics and the $50-million project from Galaxy Life Sciences, which – like the Le Field Building – is still waiting on a final tenant to agree to move into the site. Along with the San Francisco area, Boston-Cambridge is a leading life sciences hub in the country, which has led to biomanufacturing, biopharma- ceutical, and biotechnology efforts to expand westward in Massachusetts. e MetroWest region is home to several large medical manufacturing companies like Waters Corp. in Milford and Boston Scientific in Marlborough. In North Worcester County, Devens is home to a major facility from New York pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb, which is planning a 244,000-square-foot expansion. Other planned facilities in the region include the $500-million life sciences campus in Devens from Boston developer King Street Properties, the $150-million fa- cility in Boxborough from Arranta Bio, a microbiome contract manufacturer, and the $41-million facility expansion in Devens from medical device contract manufacturer SMC Ltd. And COVID-19 only furthered the importance of the biotech industry, said Ben Bradford, vice president of mem- bership and economic development at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Coun- cil (MassBio). Almost 100 Massachusetts companies are now working on diagnos- tics or therapies for the coronavirus. "It has shown the value that this industry provides both from a human health perspective, but also from an economic perspective and a workforce perspective," Bradford said. As investors and developers flock toward the sector, life sciences isn't going anywhere, said Bradford. As one of the hottest life sciences loca- tions in the world, Massachusetts has about 20 million square feet of bioman- ufacturing and lab space in the pipeline to be constructed by 2024. An illustration showing what The Reactory might look like once the Worcester biomanufacturing campus is built out. W PHOTO | WORCESTER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CORP.

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