Another biotech company with a Houston presence is adding local laboratory space with an eye on expanding its cell and gene therapy customer base.
PackGene broke ground on a 25,000-square-foot-building at 9310 Kirby Drive, just outside the southwest section of the 610 Loop.
The building will have processing and analytical lab space as well as space for quality control, a warehouse and office space, according to the company’s Feb. 23 announcement. PackGene said it will triple its Houston workforce to 60 by the end of 2023, when the space is complete.
BE&K Building Group, which has locations in Chicago, Houston and the Carolinas, is providing design-build services for the project, while Perkins + Will, which has offices in Houston and several other cities, is the architect of record.
PackGene is involved in contract research and contract development and manufacturing of adeno-associated virus vectors, which are used for early-stage drug discovery, preclinical development and clinical trials for cell and gene therapy. The company's existing Houston presence includes some process and analytical development as well as laboratory space.
"We are excited to bring economical, reliable and scalable AAV products, as well as our viral vector development and (good manufacturing practices) production capabilities, to our next full-service operations center in Houston," said PackGene’s chief technology officer LiYing Yang. "These capabilities will enable us to serve our U.S. customers better and, importantly, to help bring life-saving therapies to patients faster, more reliably, and more cost-effectively.”
Founded in Massachusetts, PackGene has additional operations in China and Boston. PackGene is headquartered in Guangzhou, China, according to Crunchbase.
PackGene’s announcement follows Swiss biotech company Lonza completing a 15,000-square-foot lab space expansion in February to grow its cell and gene therapy customer base. Behnam Ahmadian Baghbaderani, Lonza’s head of process development for cell and gene therapy, told the Houston Business Journal that Lonza was hoping to exploit Houston as a “third coast” for biotech innovation.
Some large-scale projects for the life sciences industry are also underway in the Houston area.
These projects include the Texas Medical Center’s recently announced 500-acre BioPort campus, which will focus on cell and gene therapy as well as pharmaceutical manufacturing. Additionally, the TMC’s Helix Park, which is set to open its first phase in late 2023, is already securing tenants for its research buildings. Baylor College of Medicine was named as one of the anchor tenants for Helix Park's 355,000-square-foot Dynamic One building in January.
Elsewhere, San Jacinto College will open a biotechnology training center at its campus in Generation Park, a master-planned commercial district in northeast Houston. In December, the college announced it signed a memorandum of understanding with Ireland's National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training to provide training programs.
In November, Houston-based Hines announced Sino Biological Inc. as the first tenant for its 53-acre Levit Green campus. The campus's first phase — a five-story, 294,000-square-foot laboratory and office building — will include a 7,000-square-foot conference center, a 5,800-square-foot fitness center, a 3,500-square-foot café and restaurant space, a dedicated incubator space, tenant terraces and activated outdoor seating areas. Sino has leased about 10,000 square feet of commercial lab and office space and is expected to move in during the third quarter of 2023.
