Gilead to build 175K sf research facility at Foster City campus

Drugmaker Gilead Sciences aims to build a 175,000-square-foot research center at its campus headquarters in Foster City.

The biopharmaceutical company would add the six-story R&D building to its 3.1-million-square-foot campus at 333 Lakeside Drive, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The addition comes as the maker of HIV, hepatitis C and cancer therapies expands its pipeline of potential drugs, a portfolio boosted by acquisitions, collaborations and internal research. The drugmaker also plans to convert 250,000 square feet of campus offices into labs.

The new research building would serve between 300 to 350 people, Joydeep Ganguly, senior vice president of corporate operations at Gilead, told the Business Times. The workforce would be drawn from new hires and from 45 campus buildings that house up to 8,500 people.

While Gilead did not disclose a cost for the project, based on general costs to develop lab space, the price tag likely would be upward of $200 million. Pending approvals, the rectangular, glass-covered building is expected to open in late 2026.

“It’s a significant investment,” Ganguly said. “It is the largest capital investment that we will be making in our master plan in the last four years.”

In October, Gilead announced plans to shift 250,000 square feet from offices to lab space in its master plan for the 72-acre Foster City campus. Immediate plans call for the conversion of a 45,500-square-foot office building into labs.

The research building project is planned when other biopharmaceutical companies, because of a downturn in investor interest in drugmakers, aren’t making large investments in real estate, Ganguly said.

Gilead, in contrast, had $4.7 billion in cash and equivalents used for research and acquisitions and for debt repayment, shareholder dividends and share buybacks.

The company aims to deliver 10 or more “transformative therapies” in virology, inflammation and cancer by 2030, CEO Daniel O’Day said. Gilead’s portfolio of potential drugs, meanwhile, has increased from 32 in first-quarter 2019 to 58 last quarter.

At Gilead, management believes in workspace as a catalyst for collaboration.
Flavius Martin, the head of research that Gilead recruited two years ago from Amgen, said in a company blog that “research experimentation and collaboration … requires ample physical space, which is why we’re embarking on the creation of a new research center in Foster City.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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