MassHighTech March 8, 2004

 

Woburn sees some action with cluster of biotechs
By Matt Kelly

	SRU BioSystems moved to Gill Street in Woburn in 2002. Pictured above, left to right, are Bo Lin, John Gerstenmeier, Brian Cunningham and Trish Varallo. David Spink Photo

Call it Kendall Square West.

That’s one nickname for the quarter-mile stretch of road in Woburn formally known as Gill Street. Informally, it has also been tagged the Biotech Ghetto, Genomics Alley or simply “the Corridor.”

Regardless of the name, this much about Gill Street is true: a startling number of biotech companies are crammed into a tiny space.

There is SRU BioSystems at 14 Gill St., churning out equipment for label-free high-throughput screening. Around the corner is Proteome Systems Ltd., local headquarters for an Australian maker of drug discovery equipment. Across the parking lot at 6 Gill St., U.S. Genomics is doing much the same.

Then there’s Biotrove Inc., Peoples Genetics, Mercury Therapeutics, Network Biosystems and more, all within shouting distance of one another on a single road. Suddenly it seems that Woburn — yes, that Woburn — is the place to be for biotech startups.

“You wouldn’t even know they are there,” says Woburn Mayor John Curran, who could not be more pleased with how biotechs have set up shop in his city. “It’s a great use.”

By all accounts, the evolution of Gill Street into a biotech haven was an unplanned event. Known locally as North Woburn, the area has long been home to industrial and commercial businesses. Well into the 1980s the buildings were mostly old warehouses; an adjacent shopping center today sits on the toxic waste dump made famous in the John Travolta movie “A Civil Action.”

Cummings Properties, one of the largest landlords in suburban Boston, snapped up many of the Gill Street buildings 10 years ago and overhauled them. As warehouses, they were single-story structures with wide-open floors — a natural fit for the clean rooms and ventilation systems so critical to biotech companies’ lab work.

U.S. Genomics moved into 6 Gill St. in 1999, the first biotech on the street. SRU Biosystems and Proteome Systems followed in 2000, and things snowballed from there. Now, Cummings vice president John Wiseman says, he promotes Gill Street space specifically as a biotech hotbed.

“Tenants go out there and they realize there are a lot of people doing biotech there,” Wiseman says. “We’ve been pushing this area hard for several years now.”

For the first wave of biotechs that roosted here four years ago, the reason was simple: the still-hot economy made it impossible to afford space elsewhere. Proteome Systems arrived at the end of 2000, while rents in Cambridge still commanded $50 or more per square foot.

“Real estate was very tight, especially for existing lab space,” Proteome president William Emhiser says. “This was the only suitable property we could find.”

SRU Biosystems faced a similar dilemma in the spring of 2000, co-founder Brian Cunningham says. 12 Gill St. was one of only two sites in all the Boston area that met SRU’s clean-room needs, so the company promptly signed a lease for $22 per square foot.

Predix Pharmaceuticals arrived in June 2002. Chief executive officer Michael Kauffmann says he looked at “all the usual places” in Cambridge, Waltham and Lexington but that none could match Gill Street on price and ample parking. Kauffmann would not disclose his exact rent but said it is “less than half” what quality space costs in Cambridge (which is about $35).

He also says he believes Woburn is more appealing to employees relocating from out of state, who must cope with Boston’s heart-stopping housing costs. The Woburn area is more affordable than Cambridge, and workers who do choose to live in the city face an easy commute coming out to Woburn.

“A lot of scientists you recruit from out-of-state are more suited to live outside of Boston,” Kauffmann says.

Gill Street is well-suited to the suburban lifestyle. An archipelago of office buildings surrounded by a sea of parking spaces, the street is only a few minutes from Interstates 93 and 95. A few blocks away is the Anderson MBTA station, a hub for commuter rail and airport shuttle service. Further down is Mishawum Road, which leads to a large commercial center of shopping malls and restaurants.

Meanwhile, executives say, the visibility of several biotech neighbors gives an added air of legitimacy to customers and investors, especially when they come for a visit. “There’s some name recognition here,” Kauffmann says.

Gill Street is “non-glamorous,” Cunningham says, but “people do know where it is now.”

As for socializing … well, despite the proximity, nobody has formed a softball league yet. The chief executives have occasionally hosted one another to talk shop over pizza, and sometimes white-coated lab workers can be seen sneaking cigarettes behind a dumpster, but that’s about all.

“Most of that happens in the professional senses. … we help each other with ideas and so forth,” Emhiser says.

Matt Kelly is a business and technology journalist based in Somerville.