Austin needs more lab space for bioscience startups

Austin needs more lab space.

Austin’s bioscience industry is on track to outgrow the city’s available space if more isn’t built, the Austin Business Journal reported, citing a study from real estate advisory firm Newmark.

More than 20 startups have used the Austin Community College Bioscience Incubator to get their companies off the ground, and the city needs more facilities like it, the college’s Nancy Lyon said.

The college’s 8,000-square-foot wet laboratory, which is outfitted with almost $2 million worth of equipment, launched in 2017. Originally funded through a $4.9 million state grant, the lab is now self-sustaining and hosts between eight and 15 startup companies at a time.

Local life sciences employment increased by 74 percent over the past three years and is expected to continue rising at a rate of 6.5 percent each year until 2025. Austin had more than 1.6 million square feet of buildings with biotechnology or lab space, but much of it wasn’t available to startup companies.

The city needs more mid-level options for lab space if it wants the life sciences industry to continue developing, Lyon said.

“Build whatever you want, I don’t care, but make at least some of it accessible to these people that are coming up,” she said.

All of the startups that outgrew the college’s incubator have stayed in Austin, she said.

“Which I think nobody expected,” Lyon said. “They’ve stayed. They’ve built their own spaces here in town.”

Read more

Austin

Life science developer buys Downtown Austin site for $108M

— Victoria Pruitt