South San Francisco, CA February 19, 2016
Varied Sources including Alex Keown Biospace.com & Ron Leuty of SF Business Times & ESC FB
Google’s Verily Life Science will soon call the Onyx campus home
Varied Sources including Alex Keown Biospace.com & Ron Leuty of SF Business Times & ESC FB
From our Facebook Page :So Google is moving into #SSF taking over the #Onyx campus + on East Grand & this has a lot of positives per the article by Ron Leuty & #SSF neighbor ask “Are we going to start to see more of the “Google” Bus scene coming to our neighborhoods?? Just a Thought??? I know we have plenty of Genentech Buses running around…Don’t get me wrong. Loving the love we are getting form these Dynamic Companies.”
What are your thoughts?
Thanks to John Baker & Jaime Gonzalez for this share today. (neighbor comments below)
Google unit stakes biotech claim with lease of entire Onyx campus
Feb 18, 2016, 7:12am PST By Ron Leuty SF Business Times
Google’s life sciences business is about to get a new space in the heart of the biotech industry for as many as 1,000 employees.
Verily Life Sciences plans to lease the entire 400,000-square-foot home of the former Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., according to people familiar with the deal. The transaction isn’t finalized, but could be by the end of the week, according to a source, with Verily moving aggressively to start shifting the first of 400 employees from Mountain View by the end of the year
The deal is important for a couple of reasons beyond the potential job numbers. Verily’s move 30 miles north to one of the global biotech industry’s hubs from the headquarters of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) — the holding company for search engine-technology company Google — would help it emerge from Google’s shadow. Secondly, the deal takes a high-profile chunk of space off the market at a time when Bay Area biotech real estate is tight and comes at a premium.
What’s more, the deal helps Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) achieve its promise to shareholders to shed unneeded property. The biotech giant last year shut down the Onyx site at 249-279 E. Grand Ave. after its 2013 acquisition of the cancer drug developer for $9.7 billion and is in the process of subleasing nearly 700,000 square feet of excess South San Francisco space.
The uptake of the biotech space shuffle is that Genentech Inc. remains the 800-pound gorilla of the Bay Area biotech scene — but, as one source familiar with the Verily deal said, the former Google Life Sciences now is the 400-pound version and growing.
Verily didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story, but a source said the deal is a sublease with Amgen, not a direct lease with landlord Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. (NYSE: ARE).
The deal also apparently includes land that Onyx in 2012 or 2013 purchased for future expansion.
Verily — the word means “truly” or “certainly” — is a big company of big people doing big things. Its collection of life sciences projects, acquired or in development under the Google/Alphabet banner, range from research into cancer and neurodegenerative diseases to a shake-controlling spoon for Parkinson’s disease patients and a glucose-sensing contact lens for diabetes. It also is working on a project, called Baseline, designed to no less than determine the model for a healthy human being.
It isn’t clear whether the new location will house Calico Labs, the Alphabet-backed aging-research company that also has digs in South San Francisco; or Redwood City’s Grail, the early cancer diagnostics company headed by former Google engineer Jeff Huber and backed by GV, the former Google Ventures, and others; or Verb Surgical, a medical robot joint venture with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ).
As is, Verily’s moonshots have attracted a number of ace scientists, including CEO Andy Conrad, who was chief scientific officer at Laboratory Corp. of America (NYSE: LH). Thomas Insel left his job as director of the National Institute of Mental Health to join Verily in December to lead a team trying to develop mental health care technology.
Other top Verily jobs are filled by former professors, clinicians and Google software engineers.
Verily, which has nearly 40 job openings on its jobs page, wouldn’t occupy all of the former Onyx space immediately, a source said.
In the three-building former Onyx campus — constructed in 2010, 2012 and 2013 — Verily picks up some 409,000 square feet and leases that extend as far as 2024. The space is a mixture of labs and offices, with offices dominating the newest building that was constructed to accommodate Onyx’s then-growing sales and regulatory operations.
Onyx had as many as 750 employees, with some 350 or more losing their jobs with the decision to consolidate operations under Amgen.
The Onyx site is familiar to at least one key person at Verily. Facilities head David Benjamin was director of global facilities at Onyx from late 2009 to October 2014. He was instrumental in Onyx’s negotiation of the East Grand Avenue leases with Alexandria and continued with Amgen until moving last month to Verily.
Alexandria also has a history with Alphabet. It was the landlord at Google’s first campus, when it had only Series A funding, in 1998.
Meanwhile, the deal helps Amgen out from under South San Francisco leases that it has sat on for a good part of the past decade. The company is under a corner office-mandated purge of nearly a quarter of its real estate worldwide. While the Onyx site has been vacant for only a few months, Amgen until recently had a combined 270,000 square feet at 331-333 Oyster Point Blvd. that had been vacant since those buildings’ construction in 2008.
Amgen recently subleased the building at 333 Oyster Point Blvd. to NGM Biopharmaceuticals Inc., and one source said Amgen is working on a deal for 331 Oyster Point Blvd.
Amgen employs about 500 people at its South San Francisco research center at Oyster Point and Veterans boulevards.
An Amgen spokeswoman last week told the San Francisco Business Times in an email that the company had not signed a sublease contract for the Onyx structure. “When we do sublease the property, it will be up to the tenant to determine whether or not they wish to make an announcement,” she wrote.
Ron covers biotech and sports business.
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Neighbors weight in on our FB page:
Belinda S: Ugh. They also bought our bldg in San Bruno.On Bayhill. Back of Chili’s.
Alan L: Lol more convenient for me to get to work lol
Lu: Less affordable housing.
Barbara P GREAT!!!!
Jaime P This sucks big time!!!
Matt W More evictions . make way for more hipsters
Henry B: That’s Awesome :)))
Olga G: I hope they hire a local company to move in and not one based in SF!!!
Laura B: Too much traffic.
Samantha Y This is terrible
Troy Enjoy the brand new building we never used Google.
Andrew Same thing happened in San Mateo when PlayStation announced they were bringing back the manufacturing jobs from China. People bitched and complained about the traffic, housing, etc. Yet everybody complains when these high tech companies send good jobs overseas. You can’t have it both ways.
Erica responds to Andrew: Did they bring the jobs back?
Edgardo Say goodbye to your place you’re renting.
Ramon: It’s gone be lit fam, you gone see me riding those google bikes down grand.
Chris: As a former Google employee I’m happy it’s closer to home. Hopefully I can get a job with them again.
Alan : Right it’s a pain commuting to MTV but hey can’t complain about snoozing on the bus lol
Stevie: The google bus scene IS in our neighborhood! A lot of these busses are stationed in SSF.
Margaret: Wooohooo…love it! Hope our downtown gets a revamp
DavidL Hold on to ur houses the property value is going to go up real quick.
Ryan: This shit is going to make rent and property prices go through the roof. Damn tech money going to drive out the locals who have been here for decades.
Lawrence: This is it , the start of the Tech Bro invasion!
Louis Poletti Fantastic. Fantastic.
Amanda M I’m scared that I won’t be able to afford to live in the City I grew up my whole life in. Rent is getting outrageous for some of these out dated properties. Half of these homes and apartments are not even modernized and they’re asking for 110% of ur in…See More
Samuel N Rent is going to sky rocket
Anita P Going to??? The new rentals being built out off of Oyster Point are projected to start at $5k for a studio
Samuel Rediculous… They don’t want middle class out here anymore
Maria G: This is really bad news for the working people in the city rent will sky rocket again. And will force many families out. I don’t think for many that this is a positive thing for many families.
Mary F:Please keep in mind that the Onyx space will be occupied by a Google backed company, Verily Life Sciences, not the usual tech side of the business. Verily habet banner, range from research into cancer and neurodegenerative diseases to a shake-controlli…See More
Everything South City to Mary: Thank you for this information.
Richard: Grand Ave will be like the Mission District. Bunch of party tech hipsters moving in.
Robert R: Grand ave is already turning into the mission district. The gentrification has already started and soon all of the culture will be gone. It’s funny how these kids need to take over the nicest parts of the country to create life saving drugs, they can’t do it anywhere else.
Anita: Why is anyone worried about the buses? They will be in the East side of 101.
Increasing the cost of housing is a fact of living in/near large cities. This is certainly nothing new!
The whole state has a higher cost of living, then most of the US; a…See More
Maria: I never make comments but now I will…..I have lived here for 25 years , the last few MONTHS many families are moving out why? Because this big Companies are moving in rents are high kids moving in middle of school year
Marisa: No more please. Dislike
Patty Rent prices are going to sky rocket more than they already have
Pat C: buses are better than cars
Mankato: No more Middle Class,either your Rich or poor,$100,000 a year is poor,lol
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More info:
REBROADCAST – Original Source HERE
Google (GOOG)’s Verily to Lease Onyx (AMGN)’s Old Space in SSF, Campus Can House Up to 1,000By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SAN FRANCISCO – Google’s life sciences division, Verily Life Sciences, made a big move by securing the 400,000 square-foot space formerly occupied by Onyx Pharmaceuticals (AMGN) in the heart of San Francisco’s biotech industry, the San Francisco Business Times reported this afternoon.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Business Times said Google’s move has not yet been finalized, but could be by the end of the week. If the move is finalized, then Verily could begin moving its 400 employees by the end of the year, the Business Times said. Although not confirmed, the Times said sources suggest the deal is a sublease from Amgen Inc. (AMGN), which acquired Onyx in 2013, as opposed to a direct lease with the landlords. The facility is a combination of laboratory and office space. Since no deal has yet to be confirmed, how much Verily will pay for to lease space near other pharmaceutical giants such as Genentech (RHHBY), is unknown.
If Verily does take over the former Amgen space, the company certainly has room to expand. As it stands now, the company would not occupy the entirety of the former Onyx space, but if the multiple deals Verily has struck take root, there will be plenty of opportunity for growth and expansion. Verily is currently hiring for about 40 positions, the Business Times said.
Verily is the first of Google’s many “moon shot” companies to stand alone under its new Alphabet umbrella. Verily’s focus seems to be a combination of merging big data and healthcare, while at the same time developing various biological data monitors. Verily has developed several relationships with larger biotech companies, including Novartis (NVS), DexCom (DXCM) and Sanofi (SNY).
In September, Google teamed up with Novartis, one of the largest insulin makers in the world, to develop contact lenses to monitor blood glucose levels. The lens, as described on Jan. 16, 2014 on the official Google blog is “a smart contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material.” The blog went on to indicate the company was testing prototypes that could create a reading every second and that might have integrated LED lights that would light up to warn the wearer when glucose levels were too high or low.
In August, Google and Paris-based Sanofi, another leader in diabetes therapies, teamed up on diabetes monitoring and treatments, although little was revealed about the partnership. Also in August, Google entered a partnership with DexCom (DXCM) to develop a Band-Aid sized wearable glucose monitor.
In January, Google and multiple sclerosis drug maker Biogen Idec (BIIB) teamed up to research and address environmental and genetic factors that can cause the debilitating disease multiple sclerosis.
The Times noted the real estate deal with Google, if it goes through, helps relieve Amgen of some unnecessary property that is no longer being used. Amgen, the Times said, is under an executive order to rid itself of approximately 25 percent of its world-wide real estate holdings.
Rebroadcasted from Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff