Real Estate Firm Investing in Biotech Incubator

SEATTLE-The San Diego-based Life Sciences REIT Alexandria Real Estate Equities has joined forces with the Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology and three biotech venture capital firms to launch Accelerator Corporation, an incubator seeded with $15 million that will provide the capital, expertise and space required to identify, finance and develop new ideas and technologies.

The Institute for Systems Biology is an internationally renowned non-profit research institute dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. Its goal is to demystify human biology and identify strategies for predicting and preventing diseases such as cancer, arthritis and AIDS.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities owns several biotech buildings in Seattle. Last fall it completed a $52-million acquisition-leaseback for the three-building headquarters of ZymoGenetics Corp. on the east side of Lake Union. Earlier this year, an affiliate of the company spent another $34.7 million to acquire a new office-and-laboratory building a short ways away at 1616 Eastlake Ave. E. Additionally, the company owns the former Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center buildings on First Hill and the former Bristol-Myers Squibb building at 3005 First Ave. that houses biotech firms.