CAMBRIDGE, MA– Mass Innovation Labs, which is headed co-founded by Amrit Chaudhuri, plans to double its Cambridge space, Boston Business Journal reported.
Mass Innovation Labs embodies an ecosystem of innovators in its 124,000 square foot first-class chemistry and biology space in the heart of Kendall Square. The firm provides comprehensive solutions for growing companies, including animal facilities, co-located CRO services and operational needs.
In May of 2015, Chaudhuri and two other start-up executives — Seth Taylor and PC Zhu — launched Mass Innovation Labs. A year later, the privately-funded company has plans to double its presence in Cambridge and launch a program in California, according to Boston Business Journal.
Unlike a startup incubator or accelerator, which usually just provides startups with space, advice and maybe some funding, Mass Innovation Labs aims to act as a young biotech company’s chief operating officer, Boston Business Journal quoted Chaudhuri as saying.
Mass Innovation Labs is paid a monthly fee by biotech startups to provide lab construction and build out, IT, compliance help, safety expertise, and building maintenance — everything that would be provided by a large company or an academic institution to support an R&D department. The company even coordinates animal testing for drug development with Charles River Labs, Boston Business Journal reported.
“It’s been a phenomenal response in the industry,” said Chaudhuri, who previously founded the company, Advanced Peptides. “We build this company because of pain points we saw ourselves. It wasn’t easy growing our companies and establishing them. All three co-founders founded their own biotechs in Boston… it was a need we felt and got tired of waiting for someone else to fix.”
To date, 10 companies have joined the program, which have raised and licensed deals in excess of $4 billion, Chaudhuri told Boston Business Journal. An additional two will be on board in the next month, with the goal to get to 16 companies total in the space in the next three months.
Those companies include the likes Editas Medicine (Nasdas: EDIT), which launched a $94 million IPO in February. CRISPR Therapeutics was also founded out of the program, and is the only startup to have left the program so far.
With the company’s 124,000-square-foot space in Kendall Square almost at capacity, the founders are negotiating a lease for another 100,000-square-foot space in Cambridge that will house another 10 to 25 companies, according to Boston Business Journal. That growth is in addition to a 100,000-square-foot facility that Mass Innovation Labs is looking to open in San Francisco. The company is raising more private funding to finance the growth, with the help of initial investor Breed’s Hill Capital, a wealth management company out of Charlestown.
