A de­vel­op­er and an in­vest­ment firm have joined to­geth­er to add yet an­oth­er biotech build­ing to Boston’s sky­line. And to­day, a pri­vate eq­ui­ty firm has joined the ven­ture.

KKR an­nounced to­day that it com­plet­ed an in­vest­ment and is now in a joint ven­ture with WS De­vel­op­ment and the Pub­lic Sec­tor Pen­sion In­vest­ment Board for 400 Sum­mer Street, a life sci­ence tow­er un­der con­struc­tion in Boston’s Sea­port Dis­trict. The amount that KKR in­vest­ed in­to the con­struc­tion of the project re­mains undis­closed.

400 Sum­mer Street will be a 16-sto­ry build­ing lo­cat­ed in the cen­ter of Boston’s Sea­port Dis­trict sub­mar­ket. The 635,000 square foot prop­er­ty will serve as the head­quar­ters of Boston biotech and Roche sub­sidiary Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine, which has leased all of the lab­o­ra­to­ry and of­fice space.

Justin Pat­tner

Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine was the per­son­al­ized med­i­cine firm that Roche spent $2.4 bil­lion on in 2018 to com­plete­ly buy out the com­pa­ny.

“We have a strong con­vic­tion in life sci­ences re­al es­tate and be­lieve there will be last­ing de­mand for high-qual­i­ty lab and work space in the world’s top in­no­va­tion cen­ters,” said KKR part­ner Justin Pat­tner in a state­ment.

De­mand for lab space and of­fice space is at an all-time high, set­ting records and com­pe­ti­tion over the next year. The post-pan­dem­ic re­al es­tate mar­ket shows no signs of be­ing slow — rather, it’s in­creas­ing and quite frankly, boom­ing.

“Record-set­ting de­mand over the past 12 months is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue, dri­ving in­tense com­pe­ti­tion for lab space un­til 2022/2023 when new de­vel­op­ments and con­ver­sions are de­liv­ered,” said Jonathan Varho­lak, a CBRE vice chair­man spe­cial­iz­ing in life-sci­ences and Boston-area re­al es­tate in an in­ter­view with the Boston Re­al Es­tate Times in Ju­ly.

There is al­so the as­pect of lim­it­ed space in the near fu­ture near Cam­bridge, so oth­er com­pa­nies must go to oth­er parts of Boston to lease al­ready built spaces — but they are not enough.

Jonathan Varho­lak

Boston is in the lead in terms of new lab space de­vel­op­ment, with 11 mil­lion square feet cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion, ac­cord­ing to a re­port re­leased by JLL ear­li­er this month. How­ev­er, near­ly all the space ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er this year is pre-leased, as well as rough­ly half of the 8 mil­lion square feet ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er next year.

Part of the in­crease in ac­tiv­i­ty can be traced back to ven­ture cap­i­tal fund­ing. Be­tween March 2020 and March 2021 dur­ing the height of the Covid pan­dem­ic, Boston biotech/bio­phar­ma star­tups and es­tab­lished com­pa­nies have re­ceived close to $9.6 bil­lion in ven­ture cap­i­tal fund­ing, ac­cord­ing to a CBRE re­port.

Through all in­di­ca­tions, Boston’s life sci­ence re­al es­tate mar­ket has not slowed down af­ter the pan­dem­ic — and does not plan to any time soon.

Microcap biotech Seelos Therapeutics is halting enrollment of its study in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (also known as Machado-Joseph disease) because of “financial considerations,” and in order to focus on other studies, the company said today, adding that the pause would be temporary.

The study will continue with the patients who have already enrolled, and the data from them will be used to decide whether to continue enrolling others in the future.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.