Deer­field bets on New York City, blue­prints $635M biotech hub in mid­town Man­hat­tan

In trans­la­tion­al deals with top re­search labs at the Broad, Har­vard, UNC Chapel Hill and Co­lum­bia, Deer­field Man­age­ment has made it clear that it doesn’t mind writ­ing big checks to get in ear­ly on biotech ven­tures that may be years in the mak­ing. Its lat­est bet is tak­ing that strat­e­gy one step fur­ther.

Deer­field is ded­i­cat­ing $635 mil­lion to a re­al es­tate project with the goal of build­ing a biotech hub in mid­town Man­hat­tan where aca­d­e­mics and en­tre­pre­neurs from the area can flesh out the sci­ence and grow their teams. Up to two thirds of the space will be wet lab ca­pa­ble, and spe­cial­ized ven­ti­la­tion as well as da­ta sys­tems will be out­fit­ted.

The New York-based in­vest­ment firm sub­mit­ted its pro­pos­al for the project in re­sponse to the city’s call to cre­ate a life sci­ences hub. It’s al­so com­mit­ting $30 mil­lion to a work­force train­ing ini­tia­tive, which fea­tures in­tern­ship, fel­low­ship and di­ver­si­ty pro­grams.

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