15 Necco Street, Seaport Innovation District, Greater Boston. Image courtesy of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) will spend roughly $700 million to build the Lilly Institute for Genetic Medicine in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood.
The facility will focus on RNA- and DNA-based therapeutics and draw resources from Lilly’s 2020 acquisition of Prevail Therapeutics for approximately $1 billion.
The new facility will be based in a 334,000 ft2 site in a 12-story building.
Lilly plans on occupying the site in 2024.
Before the acquisition, Prevail focused on developing disease-modifying AAV9-based gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.
“Establishing the Lilly Institute for Genetic Medicine will allow us to pair cutting-edge technologies with our deep biological expertise in several areas, including neuroscience and diabetes,” said Andrew C. Adams, vice president of genetic medicine at Lilly and co-director of the Institute, in a news release. “Lilly will focus on medicines acting at the nucleic acid level to advance an entirely new class that target the root cause of diseases, an approach that is fundamentally different than medicines available today.”
Lilly anticipates that the Boston Seaport site will employ approximately 250 workers within five years.
The site will be based at 15 Necco Street in Boston. Lilly will lease the site from Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Alexandria has also licensed 36,000 ft2 at a site in 215 First Street in Boston before completion of construction of the 15 Necco Street site.
Alexandria has also leased sites to Lilly in greater San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area and New York City.