Four anchor institutions in the San Diego region have announced a combined $800M effort to develop new lab and research facilities, a huge boost to the already-booming region's life sciences sector.

The new project would include a $250M new Center for Science and Technology for the Salk Institute, famous for research on cancer; aging, neurodegenerative diseases, climate change, plant biology and computational biology; a $100M laboratory and parking complex for Scripps Research focused in part on commercializing discoveries and new treatments; and two projects at the UC San Diego, including a new home for the Wertheim School of Public Health and another stand-alone biomedical lab complex, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

Immunology and vaccine research is set to be a key factor in these expansions. The Scripps project, for example, will contain a biosafety level-3 facility, a specialized, high-security facility used to study infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness.

San Diego’s life sciences real estate market set records in 2020 and is set to do so again in 2021, with 3.5M SF of active demand, more than $5B invested in local startups in the nine months ending in June 2021, and companies looking for space 36 months in advance, Bisnow previously reported.

Lynn Reaser, an economist at Point Loma Nazarene University, estimated that life sciences was responsible for 178,000 jobs and $47.8B in economic activity in the greater San Diego area last year.