James Flynn

Spurred by the race to combat COVID, life sciences was one of the past year’s healthiest commercial real estate sectors. And James Flynn’s Deerfield Management was in the thick of it.

The company moved ahead with its Cure complex at 345 Park Avenue South, one of the most sophisticated and amenitized life sciences developments in New York City’s history. The 300,000-square-foot building with 11 floors of office and research space started to open this year, and its lab space in particular will be available in the fourth quarter.

Flynn — who’s been back in the office at 345 Park Avenue South since April, and whose firm is fully moving in come September — said he sees the building as a pioneering ecosystem for bringing cutting-edge research to market, including more niche initiatives not otherwise easy or lucrative enough to scale up.

“A lot of what we’re building into this building is the ability to bring the health care community together,” Flynn said. “To put it really simply, if you invent a new device, someone has to pay for it, some physician has to implant it, some consumer has to live with it; and these are all different constituents in the health care ecosystem who need to interact together in order to optimize care.”

Deerfield’s influence in life sciences goes well beyond the physical, too. It is, at its core, an investment company, with some $14 billion in assets under management as of the end of 2020. That includes the backing of around 250 — and counting — for-profit and not-for-profit entities in every aspect of the life sciences sector.

Finally, Deerfield in August 2020 closed an $840 million venture capital fund that the company said would be used to invest in startups related to technology and therapies designed to improve health care delivery.

Much, if not most, of this funding and innovation — nevermind a lot of the physical development of the Cure — predates the pandemic. Flynn, though, said the pandemic spurred life sciences forward faster than it otherwise would have traveled.

“Innovation is rampant,” he said.—T.A.