Greater Boston Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston (the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England) and its surrounding areas. The region forms the northern ar ...

, primarily

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, is home to more than 1,000

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

companies, ranging from small start-ups to billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies. The many universities in the area give the region a large network of scientists. The

Kendall Square Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The square itself at the intersection of Main Street and Broadway. It also refers to the broad business district east of Portland Street, northwest of the Charles River, north of MIT ...

area of Boston holds a large concentration of the life science industry, numbering over 120 companies within a mile, and has been described as the "center of the nation’s biotechnology industry". Boston Area is the most important Biotech region worldwide with 15,9% of corporate values in 2021. The Longwood area is about two miles from Kendall Square, and is also home to many biomedical research companies.

History

The biotechnology industry in Boston dates back to the 1970s, when genetic engineering was developing.

Biogen Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of therapies for the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide. History ...

was the first company in Boston focused on biotechnology. In 2008, the governor of Massachusetts announced the Massachusetts Life Sciences Act, promising $1 billion to further the development of the biotech industry. Massachusetts is among the top states for biotech jobs. In 2016, venture investment in Massachusetts biopharma companies was $2.9 billion, and more than half of the biotech companies in the state receiving venture capital were located in Cambridge. When Cambridge and Boston were considered together, they received more than 80% of the funding in the state. Seven teaching hospitals are located in Boston, contributing to the research efforts. Five of the top six

NIH The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

-funded independent hospitals in the United States are located in Boston.

Local industry

Academic institutes

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (pronounced "veese") is a cross-disciplinary research institute at Harvard University focused on bridging the gap between academia and industry ( translational medicine) by drawing inspir ...

* Mass General Research Institute

Biotechnology companies

Abcam Abcam is a producer, distributor and seller of protein research tools. History The company was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Milner with co-founders professor Tony Kouzarides and David Cleevely, with the idea of making it easier for research scie ...

Addgene Addgene is a non-profit plasmid repository. Addgene facilitates the exchange of genetic material between laboratories by offering plasmids and their associated cloning data to not-for-profit laboratories around the world. Addgene provides a fre ...

Boston Scientific Boston Scientific Corporation ("BSC"), incorporated in Delaware, is a biomedical/biotechnology engineering firm and multinational manufacturer of medical devices used in interventional medical specialties, including interventional radiology, in ...

Conagen
*

Foundation Medicine Foundation Medicine, Inc. is an American company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which develops, manufactures, and sells genomic profiling assays based on next-generation sequencing technology for solid tumors, hematologic malignancies, and ...

Genzyme Genzyme was an American biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since its acquisition in 2011, Genzyme (also known as Genzyme Transgenics Corp or GTC Biotherapeutics) has been a fully owned subsidiary of Sanofi. In 2010, Genzyme ...

ImmunoGen An immunogen is any substance that generates B-cell (humoral/antibody) and/or T-cell (cellular) adaptive immune responses upon exposure to a host organism. Immunogens that generate antibodies are called antigens ("antibody-generating"). Immunogen ...

* Intarcia Therapeutics * Moderna Therapeutics *

NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals is a privately held, early-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of new drugs from natural sources. Early history and focus The company was founded in 2003 in Cambridge, MA (USA), by North ...

* pSivida *

Sage Therapeutics Sage or SAGE may refer to: Plants * ''Salvia officinalis'', common sage, a small evergreen subshrub used as a culinary herb ** Lamiaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint or deadnettle or sage family ** ''Salvia'', a large ...

Thrombolytic Science International Thrombolytic Science, LLC (TSI) is a private, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that was founded in 2006 based on the research of Harvard scientist Victor Gurewich into the potential use of prourokinase to break up blood clots. Gurewich c ...

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American supplier of scientific instrumentation, reagents and consumables, and software services. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Fisher was formed through the merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher S ...

Vaxess Technologies Vaxess Technologies, Inc. is a company started by a team of four graduate students from Harvard developing a suite of vaccines on the MIMIX sustained dermal delivery platform that combines high temperature stability, improved efficacy, and simp ...

Pharmaceutical companies

* Merck & Co. *

Acceleron Pharma Acceleron Pharma, Inc. is an American clinical stage biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a broad focus on developing medicines that regulate the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) superfamily of proteins, which p ...

* Akebia Therapeutics * Aderis Pharmaceuticals *

Agios Pharmaceuticals Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a public American pharmaceutical company pioneering therapies for genetically defined diseases, with a near-term focus on developing therapies for hemolytic anemias. The company was founded in 2008 (or 2007) by Lewis ...

* Alkermes *

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an American biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics for genetically defined diseases. The company was founded in 2002 and is he ...

Amgen Amgen Inc. (formerly Applied Molecular Genetics Inc.) is an American multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. One of the world's largest independent biotechnology companies, Amgen was established in T ...

Alzheon Alzheon is an American clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Framingham, Massachusetts. The company is developing medicines for patients with Alzheimer's disease and other neurological and psychiatric disorders A mental disorde ...

* Deciphera Pharmaceuticals * Editas Medicine *

Intellia Therapeutics Intellia Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel, potentially curative therapeutics leveraging CRISPR-based technologies. To fully realize the transformative potential of CRISPR-based technologies, Inte ...

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a publicly traded pharmaceutical company. It was originally called Microbia, Inc. Microbia was founded by postdocs from the lab of Gerald Fink at the Whitehead Institute to commercialize approaches that had been ...

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Merrimack Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. They specialize in developing drugs for the treatment of cancer. Merrimack's first FDA-approved drug was approved in 2015; Onivyde, a liposo ...

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loc ...

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

Sanofi Sanofi S.A. is a French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. Originally, the corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 2004, Sanofi-Syn ...

Sarepta Therapeutics Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. () is a medical research and drug development company with corporate offices and research facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Incorporated in 1980 as AntiVirals, , archiveurl = http://www.gene-tools ...

Takeda Pharmaceuticals The is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company, with partial American and British roots. It is the largest pharmaceutical company in Asia and one of the top 20 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world by revenue (top 10 followin ...

Ultragenyx Ultragenyx is an American biopharmaceutical company involved in the Research and Development of novel products for treatment of rare and ultra-rare genetic diseases for which there are typically no approved treatments and high unmet medical need ...

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Vertex Pharmaceuticals is an American biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was one of the first biotech firms to use an explicit strategy of rational drug design rather than combinatorial chemistry. It maintains headqu ...

Other related companies

Atlas Venture Atlas Venture is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in life sciences startup companies in the U.S. Atlas is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the majority of its investments are located. Atlas rolled out its eleventh ...

Cytel Cytel is a multinational statistical software developer and contract research organization, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Cytel provides clinical trial design, implementation services, and statistical products primarily for the ...

* Fast Track Initiative * IDDI * LabCentral
Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio)

References

{{reflist Biotechnology companies of the United States Boston-related lists Pharmaceutical companies of the United States