Goodwin Launches Practice Group Wedding Biotech With Real Estate

As the market for biotech and other medical companies developing vaccines, medicines and medical instruments continues to grow, Goodwin Procter is launching a PropSci practice to handle the industry’s specialized real estate needs.

“Real estate for biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies has become a class in itself,” said Andy Sucoff, a partner in the firm’s real estate industry group and chair of its Boston office. “We are launching the PropSci practice to meet growing client demand at the intersection of the two industries.”

The market for suitable properties is “white hot” in the United States, and in Europe in places like Cambridge, England and France, Sucoff said. Some of the hottest U.S. markets for life sciences real estate are south San Francisco and Boston -- where the firm has offices -- and in New Jersey. Goodwin also has a Manhattan location.

He will co-lead the new group with life sciences practice partner Danielle Lauzon.

She noted that as more companies get involved in the life sciences industry, there is more demand for suitable spaces for companies to use as laboratories, testing and manufacturing facilities. “The market is growing because they have unique real estate needs,” Lauzon said.

A medical device maker that is calibrating instruments, for example, would likely require a property where there are no vibrations from anything outside, Sucoff said.

Forming the new practice group, Lauzon and Sucoff said, was also driven by increased investment.

“Venture capital and private equity funding has led to bigger markets,” Lauzon said. The firm advises companies and investors in areas such as acquisitions and initial public offerings as well as construction and financing of facilities and leasing transactions.

Among the firm’s clients are Bluebird Bio Inc., which it represented in a leasing deal of more 253,000 square feet of office and research and development space, and its 267,000 sublease from pharmaceutical company Sanofi located in a life sciences cluster in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It has also represented Brookfield Properties in leasing arrangements within the 88-acre Science + Technology Park at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Goodwin Procter started planning its PropSci practice more than six months ago, Sucoff said, before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, the firm has been helping clients grapple with the effects of Covid-19 on their businesses, including webinars addressing specific questions such as “Can I Keep My Lab Open?”

While the pandemic “may cause people to rethink their use of commercial property,” he said, “in life sciences you can’t do your work in a garage, kitchen or basement so we expect the market to continue to move ahead.”

The firm launched Goodwin Labs, an initiative to offer young life sciences companies legal services and education content to flourish, in February 2020. Its newly formed PropSci practice will tap nearly 300 firm life sciences and real estate lawyers who work in the firm’s 13 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.