Pfizer Inks Deal To Move Biotech Operation Into San Francisco
On Tuesday, Pfizer announced plans to move its Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center to San Francisco, boosting efforts by Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) and other city officials to recruit biotech businesses to the area near UC-San Francisco's Mission Bay campus, the San Francisco Business Times reports (Leuten, San Francisco Business Times, 8/5).
Pfizer plans to occupy about 100,500 square feet of space beginning in early 2010. Pfizer has a 15-year lease on the space, as well as an option to rent half of an adjoining building of the same size. About 100 Pfizer employees will be located at the space.
City officials said they had not estimated how much property tax or other revenue San Francisco could derive from Pfizer's move (Tansey, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/6).
Pfizer is relocating its BBC unit and staff from Rinat Neuroscience, which Pfizer bought in 2006, from South San Francisco (San Francisco Business Times, 8/5).
Newsom and other city officials are working to recruit biomedical companies to the city, touting proximity to UCSF.
Kelley Kahn of San Francisco's redevelopment agency said that plans for Mission Bay call for about six million square feet of commercial space for biotech companies.
About three million square feet of space there has been built, is under construction or has been approved for construction, according to the Chronicle (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/6).