Boston biotech booming as scientific research flourishes

With the Boston media firmly focused on all things biotech last week, one reporter found that the biotech boom in the greater Boston area was quickly driving up the rent on lab space. One hot spot, East Cambridge, has seen the vacancy rate for lab space decline from 32.9 percent to 5.7 percent in two years. In Boston, the vacancy rate on labs is 1.5 percent. And prices have been skyrocketing, with investors paying up to $1,000 a square foot. Novartis and Shire have been two of the biggest developers expanding local operations. Those are all numbers that most of the economic development groups that were exhibiting at the Boston Convention Center would love to see. Ironically, most analysts would put the growth down to the cluster effect. There are few state incentives on the table for companies looking to beef up in Massachusetts, but the availability of world-class research talent and a concentration of venture capital has helped make Boston-area biotech thrive.

- here's the report from the Boston Herald

ALSO: Sweden crunched the numbers for its drug research industry and found 110 programs that were either in pre-clinical or clinical trials. About one in four of those projects originated in a university and 44 percent are available for partnering. Release