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F. Hoffmann-La Roche, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies, announced on Thursday that it will establish an Innovation Center on Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus in Allston.
The Swiss multinational company is leasing 30,000 square feet of space from the ERC’s 1.9 million square feet,and plans to eventually employ up to 500 employees.
“Building on an already strong and extensive partnership, the new Center will bring new talent and new opportunities to pursue our shared commitment to discovery for the advancement of human health,” Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said in a press release.
Roche hopes to use the new innovation center to “leverage the exceptional talent in the Boston area” according to Roche CEO Thomas Shinecker.
Roche and Harvard are long time collaborators, with several projects under their belt.
In 2020, Roche approached Harvard professor Daniel Kahne and his team to test a new type of antibiotic effective against Acinetobacter baumanni1 (CRAB), a pathogen that is relatively resistant to most common antibiotics and kills patients by causing blood, lung, or urinary tract infections.
The center will anchor Roche and its subsidiary Genentech’s endeavors into cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism research and development, as well as the companies’ work on drug discovery and development using AI and data science tools.
Roche’s development will be across the way from residential buildings and conference centers, just a few of the buildings planned for the ERC.
The ERC is a development on a Harvard University-owned parcel of land in Allston Landing North off Western Avenue, which aims to create a non-institutional center of innovation and research in the region.
The project, which is nearly fourteen years in the making, will transform a defunct industrial rail yard into a pedestrian-friendly area focused on business and research. The University is on track to add hundreds of new housing units to the Allston neighborhood within the year.
The idea for the research campus was first mooted by Harvard around 2011, though it only received a green light from the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) in 2022.
Roche’s move-in is a part of the initial phase of the ERC, which is located adjacent to the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and across the street from the Harvard Business School.
Roche’s Thursday announcement comes as biopharma giants like GSK, Takeda, and AstraZeneca continue expanding their presence in the biotech hub that is Kendall Square, even as neighborhoods like Allston and Boston suburbs see an uptick in biotech companies.
Early stage innovation, development, and experimentation is being increasingly outsourced to startups like those flourishing in Kendall Square by large biopharma firms, which themselves tend to focus mainly on late-stage development.
Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 wrote in a press release that “innovative public private partnerships” like the one between Roche and Harvard continue to keep Massachusetts a global leader in the life sciences.
“I reauthorized our Life Sciences Initiative so that we can continue to support collaborations between leading institutions and companies that spur scientific discovery and create high-quality jobs,” Healey wrote.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 echoed Healey’s sentiments in the press release, praising the addition of Roche’s innovation center to Allston as a “major milestone for the Enterprise Research Campus.”
“Our city welcomes expanding companies both homegrown and from across the world as the best place to source talent anywhere in the United States,” she wrote. “We are excited for the great jobs and progress this represents for our city.”
—Staff writer Stephanie Dragoi can be reached at stephanie.dragoi@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Thamini Vijeyasingam can be reached at thamini.vijeyasingam@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @vijeyasingam.
