Biotech Firm Doubles Cambridge Headquarters Footprint
A biotech firm has expanded its global headquarters in Cambridge.
QurAlis opened a new 30K SF office at 35 Cambridgepark Drive in Cambridge, doubling its previous space in the Alewife neighborhood, it announced Wednesday. It was previously located at nearby 100 Cambridgepark Drive.
More than a third of its new facility is lab space. The firm specializes in research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
“The facility at Alewife allowed us to expand our R&D footprint, lab capacity, and office space to support QurAlis’ growth and enhance our leading precision medicine portfolio and platform capabilities," Jason Brown, chief financial officer at QurAlis, said in a statement.
35 Cambridgepark Drive is a 224K SF purpose-built lab building in West Cambridge directly across from Alewife MBTA station. It is part of a three-building, 450K SF campus owned by Healthpeak Properties.
The building's amenities include an attached garage, a craft food hall, a fitness center, private shower and locker rooms, secure bike rooms and a client lounge.
In 2018, QurAlis won a competition sponsored by Pfizer for a spot at LabCentral in Cambridge. The win granted the company access to a fully equipped and permitted lab space as well as prepaid rent for one year.
Last year, the company opened its European headquarters in Leiden, the Netherlands, which included clinical manufacturing of its products.
The tenant was represented by JLL's Carolyn Wheatley and Marc Consalvi.
Healthpeak Properties has been planning more development in the Alewife neighborhood. It partnered with Hines in April to redevelop a 40-acre site that will include multifamily, lab and retail.
The life sciences REIT acquired several properties in the neighborhood in the years just before and during the pandemic, leading Cambridge city officials to place a moratorium on development in the area in 2022 before it rezoned the area in 2023.
Lab vacancy in West Cambridge stood at 47.9% as of the first quarter, the highest in the city, according to CBRE.
CORRECTION, JUNE 23, 3:10 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story misspelled Carolyn Wheatley's name. The story has been updated.
