Joel Marcus and Peter Moglia

Joel Marcus and Peter Moglia are calling the plays at Alexandria, the biggest name in the game nationally when it comes to life sciences and lab real estate.

The Pasadena-based real estate investment trust launched 30 years ago as an office REIT focused on life sciences companies, and it has since transformed into the owner of 74 million square feet used by companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly in the biggest biotech and bio-manufacturing hubs in the country.

“Over 90 percent of diseases have yet to see addressable therapies or cures,” Marcus said, describing the continued need for life sciences space.

Alexandria completed $1.3 billion in asset sales in 2023 as it entrenches further into its megacampus strategy and does away with “noncore assets.” The firm reported $275 million in new or pending non-megacampus sales after the first quarter of 2024, with another $1.13 billion expected to be unloaded before the end of the year.

In the first quarter, Alexandria posted higher revenues and higher funds from operations compared to 2023, as well as a 94.6 percent occupancy rate after 1.14 million square feet in leasing activity. For example, the REIT recently announced AI-powered drug developer Insitro signed an extension for 143,188 square feet in San Francisco. And, in February, AstraZeneca announced a $300 million investment plan for an Alexandria facility along the East Coast’s Interstate 270 Technology Corridor, a market in which the company is said to control 80 percent. 

Alexandria also delivered 343,445 square feet so far this year, and expects to add another 5.54 million square feet by the end of 2024. “From the second quarter of 2024 through the end of 2027, we expect to deliver approximately $480 million of net operating income from the current pipeline,” Moglia said.

Marcus founded the company in 1994, naming it after the city of Alexandria, Egypt, which was the center of science and discovery in the ancient world.

“We have established ourselves at the vanguard in the heart of the $5 trillion, secularly growing life science industry,” he said.