InterVenn Biosciences has terminated its 10-year lease on a 142,000-square-foot building in South San Francisco.
The city-based biotech startup canceled the lease on its office and research building at 499 Forbes Avenue, San Francisco Business Times reports.
The lease was signed a year ago with San Francisco-based Aralon Properties. The terms of the exit agreement were not disclosed.
The lease represents a major expansion for InterVenn, which researches new ways to detect and treat cancer. The company launched in Redwood City in 2017 and has since relocated to the biotech hub in South San Francisco.
On an annualized basis, the initial lease is approximately $84 per square foot.
But last year, many life sciences companies cut costs as Wall Street exited long-term biotech investments, The Business Times reported. At the same time, venture capitalists are demanding that portfolio companies hit key milestones to free up more cash.
The once-booming Bay Area life sciences real estate market is now facing oversupply and a shortage of capital in the biotech industry. Few initial public offerings over the past 18 months have also reduced demand for offices and labs.
According to an analysis by Colliers life sciences specialist Rico Cheung, more than 1.12 million square feet of existing labs entered the Bay Area sublease market in the first quarter.
That doesn’t include the nearly 817,000 square feet that were directly listed by landlords during the period.
It is unusual in life sciences real estate to sublease space over direct listings, Cheung said.
Despite the market, Dallas-based Trammell Crow last month proposed a nearly 750,000-square-foot life sciences campus in South San Francisco
Aralon lists the building as a Forbes 499. Brokers Joe Cammarata of Kidder Mathews and Gregg Domanico and Michael Domanico of CBRE hold the listing for single or multiple tenants.
InterVenn, led by co-founder and CEO Erwin Estigarria, has raised nearly $300 million and is based at 2 Tower Place in South San Francisco. It also has sites in the Philippines, Malaysia and Australia.
— Dana Bartholomew
