On the short list of the pre­mier biotech hubs in the world, the Boston area has trans­formed in­to a home for in­no­va­tion — and ridicu­lous­ly high rent. Now, a re­al es­tate firm is seek­ing ten­ants for a ma­jor site in neigh­bor­ing Somerville with more than enough el­bow room.

Snapped up by Bio­Med Re­al­ty, the land — which con­sists of an ex­ist­ing 162,000 square-foot of­fice build­ing and a 7.5 acre site — will serve as an “in­no­va­tion space” for a va­ri­ety of re­search, tech­nol­o­gy and life sci­ence ten­ants, the re­al es­tate com­pa­ny said in a press re­lease. Fi­nan­cial terms weren’t dis­closed.

“Our vi­sion for the As­sem­bly Square lo­ca­tion is to cre­ate a pre­mier in­no­va­tion cam­pus where sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy in­ter­sects,” Bio­Med Re­al­ty vice pres­i­dent Sal Zin­no said in a state­ment. “With close prox­im­i­ty to down­town Boston, the air­port, a ma­jor in­ter­state high­way, pub­lic tran­sit and ad­ja­cent ameni­ties … it’s an ide­al lo­ca­tion and size for a large life sci­ence com­pa­ny to es­tab­lish a promi­nent head­quar­ters.”

The Somerville fa­cil­i­ty will join ex­ist­ing Bio­Med Re­al­ty-owned lab and of­fice space in Cam­bridge and Boston. The com­pa­ny said in a press re­lease that the lo­ca­tion was strate­gi­cal­ly cho­sen due to its prox­im­i­ty to renowned re­search in­sti­tu­tions such as the Mass­a­chu­setts In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy and Har­vard.

De­sign has al­ready be­gun on the be­gin­ning phas­es of the sprawl­ing Somerville cam­pus, which when com­plet­ed will in­clude R&D, in­no­va­tion and re­tail spaces, plus a roof deck and open pub­lic recre­ation and ameni­ty ar­eas, Bio­Med Re­al­ty said.

The ac­qui­si­tion of the Somerville land adds to an ex­ist­ing 11.4 mil­lion square feet of land al­ready owned by Bio­Med Re­al­ty, which is spread across the US and the UK, in­clud­ing the Boston and Cam­bridge space, San Fran­cis­co, San Diego, Seat­tle and Cam­bridge, UK.

The new space is sure to add even more com­pe­ti­tion to Boston’s al­ready-bustling bio­phar­ma hub. In ear­ly 2020, End­points News re­port­ed that on­ly 0.8% of lab space was va­cant and still avail­able for rent in the area, while near­by East Cam­bridge (home to Kendall Square) was en­tire­ly oc­cu­pied — even with the high rent av­er­age of near $110 per square foot.

In Au­gust, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb inked a deal for a 360,000 square-foot lease at Cam­bridge Cross­ing, part of a 43-acre life sci­ences hub be­ing built on the city line be­tween Cam­bridge and Somerville.

Biotech en­tre­pre­neur Arie Bellde­grun and his son Dan, who op­er­ates Break­through Prop­er­ties, have been work­ing with Tish­man Spey­er on new projects of their own in Cam­bridge. Those in­clude a new Sea­port fa­cil­i­ty and the de­vel­op­ment of the ini­tial phase of Har­vard’s new En­ter­prise Re­search Cam­pus in All­ston.

Four years ago, when Arena CEO Amit Munshi cut its ties to a troubled weight drug and doubled down on the pipeline, a cannabinoid receptor 2 agonist figured prominently in the biotech’s future. On Tuesday evening, however, Munshi’s high hopes for the drug took a nasty hit after it failed a Phase IIb study for patients with irritable bowel syndrome pain.

Put through a randomized pace with 273 patients, researchers said it flat failed the primary endpoint among the large group with abdominal pain. But they quickly went on to highlight subgroup data, always a tricky and controversial ploy, where they spotlighted a positive p value for patients with moderate to severe pain who received the high dose of the drug — one of 3 provided in the study.

Merck took a big gamble when it opted to jump into the Covid-19 vaccine race late, and made an equally momentous decision to back out in late January. Now, looking to chip in on the effort, Merck reportedly agreed to team up with one of the companies that has already crossed the finish line.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday is expected to announce a partnership between drugmakers Merck and Johnson & Johnson to jointly produce J&J’s recombinant protein Covid-19 vaccine that received the FDA’s emergency use authorization Saturday, the Washington Post reported.

FibroGen will likely have to delay its US rollout for roxadustat once again.

In an unexpected move, the FDA is convening its Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee to review the NDA in an advisory committee meeting. The date is yet to be confirmed.

Just a few weeks ago, SVB Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges predicted that the roxa approval could come ahead of the PDUFA date on March 20 — effusive despite already being let down once by the FDA’s extension of its review back in December. AstraZeneca, which is partnered with FibroGen on the chronic kidney disease-related anemia drug, disclosed regulators had requested further clarifying analyses of clinical data.

CRLs. 483s. CBER, CDER and RWE. For biopharma professionals, these acronyms command attention because of the fundamental role FDA plays in drug development. Now Endpoints is doubling down on regulatory coverage, and launching a weekly report focusing on developments out of White Oak, with analysis and insight into what it all means.

Coverage will be led by our new senior editor, Zachary Brennan. He joins Endpoints from POLITICO, where he covered pharma. Prior to that he was the managing editor for Regulatory Focus, a news publication from the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society.