Scottish Development International, a government sponsored entity charged with boosting the country's economic base, chose Alexandria due to its position as North America's leading real estate investment trust dedicated to the life sciences market. Alexandria already has a presence in most of the US markets that Edinburgh hopes to compete against, including Cambridge, MA, San Francisco and North Carolina.

"Alexandria's reputation for outstanding life science cluster development, combined with Scotland's reputation for producing outstanding science, will act as a magnet for some of the world's leading scientists, researchers and companies," predicts SDI official Jack Perry. Alexandria owns and operates more than 11 million sf of office/laboratory properties in North America, and has another six million sf in various stages of construction. The latter category includes Mission Bay in San Francisco and East River Science Park in New York City.

"We look forward to applying our successful life science cluster business model to this effort to create a world-class destination of choice for the industry," says Alexandria CEO Joel Marcus, who cited the nearby University of Edinburgh's position as an academic global leader in biotechnology as one source of research talent.