Research and Development

Enanta Pharmaceuticals Inc. is moving its headquarters in fall 2001 to 45,000-sf in Watertown, Mass. Enanta utilizes peptide morphing to develop antiviral drugs and currently has 56 employees.

Signature Bioscience is seeking between 70,000-sf and 80,000-sf in San Francisco for its headquarters, currently housed in 27,000-sf in Hayward and 28,000-sf in Richmond. The Richmond facility may be retained in the relocation. Draws for a San Francisco headquarters include the new UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus and its planned life science campus. Catellus Development Corp., developer of the life science facility, has estimated completion of the 155,000-sf building in 2002, not timely for Signature's move.

Austin-based Ambion Inc.'s Diagnostic RNA unit has built a new manufacturing lab and is seeking approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin manufacturing products. Shifting its focus to the molecular pathology market, Ambion began the development in October 2000. The facility also houses space for devising disease test kit formulas.

Smith & Nephew Inc. is expanding in Massachusetts. The company plans to open a new 80,000-sf Andover headquarters for its Endoscopy Division in 2002. The existing headquarters building will be converted to a 110,000-sf manufacturing facility, and a 60,000-sf Mansfield, Mass., manufacturing plant will be expanded by 40,000 sf. The Endoscopy Division makes arthroscopic products.

The Food and Drug Administration’s new 350,000-sf Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition opened in October. The $62.5-million life sciences and chemistry lab facility consolidates three offices from the D.C. area, and accommodates approximately 950 employees. Planning and construction of the building took four years. The general contractor for the project is Tomkins.

Western Michigan University is building a 50,000-sf Paper Technology Pilot Plant at its new Business-Technology-Research Park. Scheduled for completion in December 2001,  it will be the first in a series of new buildings that will comprise the new College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Complex. Architect for the pilot plant is HarleyEllis, with design consultant Rosetti Architects of Birmingham, Mich.

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. has opened a telecommunications equipment testing facility in Research Triangle Park. The 4,500-sf network equipment building system features an earthquake simulator providing tremors up to 7.0 on the Richter scale that shakes equipment on a hydraulic table. The facility also houses an altitude simulator (up to 20,000 ft) and temperature extremes ranging from 40 to 180 degrees Celsius.  

Abgenix has acquired 72,000-sf of research and development space adjacent to its headquarters in Ardenwood Corporate Park in Fremont. This expansion of Abgenix's R&D space will provide facilities for developing antibody therapeutic products.

The La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology contracted Bilbro Construction Co. for remodeling and tenant improvement of 1,500 sf in an occupied biomedical lab facility. The $250,000 project was designed by Architects Delawie Wilkes Rodriguez Barker and engineered by TKG Consulting Engineers.

Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. is building a 185,000-sf headquarters and state-of-the-art laboratory and research facility in an MIT-owned building in Cambridge. The $65 million project, developed by Barr & Barr Inc., involves renovating the existing building, including restoration of the historical building's 150-year-old facade.

The Cancer Therapy and Research Center has completed a 20,000-sf expansion of its Institute for Drug Development. Consolidating basic and translational research labs, the facility will focus on developing new cancer treatment therapies. The expansion is funded by a $35 million capital campaign that will also endow the IDD senior scientific chairs.

Bethesda-based Coagulation Diagnostics Inc. moved into a new lab facility at the Maryland Technology Development Center in Rockville on May 1.  The biotech firm, maker of commercialized diagnostic tests for cardiovascular disease, will retain its Bethesda office space while expanding its R&D operations.

Sandia/California National Laboratories plans to begin construction on the Distributed Information Systems Laboratory in April 2002. The $35.5-million, 70,400-sf R&D facility will house 130 scientists from a variety of fields collaborating on improving nuclear weapons monitoring and testing, which is carried out by computer simulations. Dekker/Perich/Sabatini of Albuquerque, N.M., was awarded the $1,562,000 design contract for the project.

PharmaNet is tripling the size of its operations in Cary, North Carolina. The Princeton, N.J.-based contract research organization provides the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with a comprehensive range of drug development and consulting services. Slated for September, the expansion of the Cary office will increase square footage from 6,600 to 19,000 and consolidate space on two floors of the Weston One to a larger facility on a single floor.

The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill is planning to develop a 1,000-acre site as a satellite campus. The mixed-use development will contain commercial, research and institutional space as well as housing for faculty, staff, and students. Accommodating 25,000 employees and housing up to 3,000, the project will feature additional facilities for research in genomics and bioinformatics.