- The Denver-Boulder region is becoming a major hub for the life sciences industry due to the growth of venture capital and government funding, a collaborative research environment and a booming market for laboratory space.
- The pool of skilled life sciences workers is growing much faster in the Denver-Boulder area than the national average.
- “Boulder has all the elements you want in an innovation ecosystem — research universities, scientists, venture capital and then ourselves providing the mission-critical infrastructure,” said Tim Schoen, president and CEO of expanding BioMed Realty in Colorado.
This story is part of CNBC’s quarterly Cities of Success series, which explores cities that have become business hubs with an entrepreneurial spirit that has attracted capital, companies and employees.
The Denver-Boulder region is quickly emerging as a major hub for the life sciences industry, attracting companies that are developing cutting-edge medical treatments and technologies.
Life sciences research aims to understand living things, from cells to our planet, to improve health, food and the environment. Funding growth is fueled by a combination of factors: growth in venture capital and government funding, a collaborative research environment and a booming market for laboratory space.
BioMed Realty CEO Tim Schoen gives CNBC a tour of a construction site slated for conversion into state-of-the-art laboratory space.
CNBC
San Diego-based BioMed Realty, a major real estate player (acquired by Blackstone in 2016 for $8 billion), made headlines in 2022 with the record $625 million purchase of Flatiron Park, a sprawling complex in Boulder, Colorado . 1 million square feet in 23 buildings is being converted into laboratory and technical space to meet growing demand in the region.
“It was a logical next step … to invest in Boulder and scale,” said Tim Schoen, president and CEO of BioMed Realty. “Boulder has all the elements you want in an innovation ecosystem—research universities, scientists, venture capital, and then ourselves providing the mission-critical infrastructure.”
In addition to Boulder, the firm operates in five other major life science and technology markets, including San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, the Boston and Cambridge areas in Massachusetts, and Cambridge, United Kingdom
Enveda Biosciences, a biotech company, occupies laboratory space in Boulder.
CNBC
According to commercial real estate group CBRE, 14 companies have sought a cumulative 506,000 square feet of lab space in the Denver-Boulder market in 2023, which includes the neighboring city of Aurora. In addition, the Denver-Boulder market saw 370,000 square feet of lab space completed and move-in ready with another 560,000 square feet under construction or renovation.
“I would describe Boulder as unique and explosive. Unique in terms of its location in the foothills of the Rockies,” Schoen said, “and then explosive in terms of how the ecosystem has really grown and expanded over the last decade.”
Investors are paying attention.
“Investors from Colorado, as well as from the coast, see opportunities here,” said Elise Blazewicz, president and CEO of the Colorado Life Sciences Association. “Our ecosystem has raised over $1 billion for the past seven consecutive years – and early-stage funding in Colorado in 2023 grew faster than other life sciences markets in the country.”
Founded in 2003, the Bioscience Association supports the development of the life sciences with an emphasis on access to capital, education, networking and more.
According to Blazewicz, seed funding, Series A and Series B rounds increased from 2022 to 2023. The biggest increase was seen in Series A and Series B funding, which grew by $53 million, or 28%, in the year. Pre-funding, the earliest stage of venture capital, grew by $18 million, growing 163% over that time period.
A recent CBRE report found Denver-Boulder to be the top life sciences real estate market in the U.S., fueled by record investments from venture capitalists and the National Institutes of Health.
The report also found that the pool of skilled life sciences workers is growing much faster in the region than the national average, growing 35 percent over the past five years, compared to 16 percent growth for the U.S. as a whole.
The recent surge in venture capital flowing into Denver-Boulder builds on the area’s proven success over the past several decades.
In 1998, entrepreneur Kevin Koch co-founded the biotech company Array BioPharma in Boulder. The company was acquired by Pfizer for $10.64 billion in 2019, and Koch is now co-founder and CEO of clinical-stage startup Edgewise Therapeutics.
Edgewise develops therapies for rare muscle diseases and generated net proceeds of $186.1 million in its March 2021 initial public offering.
But the company started small.
“We were in an incubator at the University of Colorado. And we attracted talented people from the University of Colorado,” Koch told CNBC. “We had interns who eventually became employees.”
A scientist working at Edgewise Therapeutics in Boulder, Colorado, focuses on developing therapies for rare muscle diseases.
CNBC
Today, Edgewise has a much larger space in Boulder: a total of 28,000 square feet, with half of its 93 employees working in the city office. The company plans to expand its reach and hire more workers in the coming years.
Koch said the Boulder area’s history of DNA and RNA research in the 1980s was key to unlocking protein-based drugs to fight disease, which helped attract capital to the health science center. life.
“[That research] nuclear investment in the Boulder area,” he said. “Now these companies that are commercializing these products, they’ve reinvested in Boulder.”
With the help of leading venture firms, Edgewise Therapeutics has raised more than half a billion dollars – $550 million in cash by 2027.
“We decided that Boulder was really the right place. And I think it turned out to be. We have been able to attract a lot of fantastic talent,” said Koch.
The Denver-Boulder innovation ecosystem spits out ideas quickly.
Aurora, Denver’s largest suburb, is the epicenter of life sciences research: a 256-acre complex that is home to the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, which receives $700 million in annual grant funding.
Dan LaBarbera is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and founder of the Center for Drug Discovery on the medical campus.
“Our goal here at the Drug Discovery Center is to function as a bridge to move innovation from academia, to industry and then to the clinic,” LaBarbera told CNBC.
An inside look at the Drug Discovery Center on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, led by Dr. Dan LaBarbera (right), with the goal of accelerating the process from drug discovery to delivery to patients.
CNBC
Founded in 2021, the center develops drugs for a wide range of diseases from cancer to Alzheimer’s — using cutting-edge technologies, including robots and 3D bioprinters.
“I think people are generally familiar with 3D printers, in their ability to print plastics or even metals,” LaBarbera said. “We use very similar technologies to print complex tissues that mimic aspects of human disease.”
Historically, it has taken approximately 10 to 15 years for a drug to move from the discovery phase to approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.
“Now we can speed that up with this technology to make that process roughly six to eight years,” LaBarbera said.
The center helps shorten the timeline from drug discovery to treatment by helping start-ups and existing companies bring breakthrough medicines to patients more quickly.
“Our goal is not to compete with the pharmaceutical industry,” LaBarbera said. “Our goal is actually to work with them to develop really innovative potential drug therapies.”
TUNE IN: The “Cities of Success” special featuring Denver and Boulder will air on CNBC on April 11 at 10:00 PM ET.
