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Lab Central, Inc., also known as LabCentral, is a
non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
organization started in November 2013. Operating over 225,000 sq. feet in Cambridge and on the Harvard University campus, LabCentral offers a network of fully permitted
laboratory A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...
and office spaces for as many as 125
biotech 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 ...
start-ups comprising approximately 1000 scientists and entrepreneurs in the heart of
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 ...
. Additionally, LabCentral is committed to creating a more sustainable and inclusive biotech system supporting developments in
STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
, workforce training, and next generation entrepreneurship through its LabCentral Ignite initiative. LabCentral is also home to Gallery 1832 which engages the local community to celebrate artistic innovation. As a non-profit, LabCentral does not take equity in any of its companies. Its main sources of funding are revenues from laboratory and equipment rentals, as well as grants, donations, and sponsorship contributions . LabCentral officially opened on April 1, 2014.


History

Co-founders Peter Parker of BioInnovation LLC and Johannes Fruehauf of Cambridge Biolabs, first thought of flexible, turnkey laboratory space for startups in 2006 while launching Cequent Pharmaceuticals with technology licensed from
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital (founded in 1916) and New England Deaconess Hospital (founded ...
. After selling Cequent , they each established new ventures as residents of the
Cambridge Innovation Center Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) is an American real estate services company which bills itself as a "community of entrepreneurs". The company was founded in 1999 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduates Timothy Rowe and Andrew ...
, a shared office space for startups established by Tim Rowe. In late 2012, Rowe joined Parker and Fruehauf as a co-founder of LabCentral, and with the help of Steven Tregay of Forma Therapeutics and John Harthorne of
MassChallenge MassChallenge is a global, zero-equity startup accelerator, founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009. MassChallenge is headquartered in Boston's Seaport District in the Innovation and Design Building, and has additional U.S. locations in Texas ...
, created LabCentral with the goal of allowing entrepreneurs to pool resources. On February 7, 2013, The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center announced that it awarded LabCentral a $5 million capital grant to fund LabCentral. Triumvirate Environmental also became a founding sponsor with a donation of 2.5 million dollars. Other early sponsors include Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research,
Cooley LLP Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life ...
, Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, and Johnson & Johnson Innovation.
MIT Investment Management Company The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
is LabCentral's real estate partner. On April 4, 2013, LabCentral hosted a groundbreaking event at its 700 Main Street location in Kendall Square, Cambridge. Speakers included Governor
Deval Patrick Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician, civil rights lawyer, author, and businessman who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was first elected in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney, who ...
, Senator Mary L. Landrieu, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship,
Susan Windham-Bannister Susan is a feminine given name, from Persian "Susan" (lily flower), from Egyptian '' sšn'' and Coptic ''shoshen'' meaning "lotus flower", from Hebrew ''Shoshana'' meaning "lily" (in modern Hebrew this also means "rose" and a flower in general), ...
, PhD, president of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, State Senator Sal DiDomenico, and
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
Associate Provost Martin Schmidt. As of June 2013, LabCentral was approaching $10 million in funding. In August 2013, LabCentral announced that
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 ...
will be the first company that will move into the facility. Vaxess is a startup created by Harvard graduates who are working to commercialize a
Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
technology that will stabilize vaccines so they can be shipped and stored without refrigeration. In September 2013, LabCentral announced that Eppendorf North America became a gold sponsor. Eppendorf North America is a subsidiary of Eppendorf AG, the world's market leader in the field of developing, producing and selling products and services for laboratories. In October 2013, LabCentral announced that Auxocell Laboratories Inc. had been admitted. Auxocell has developed a new method to harvest
Wharton's jelly Wharton's jelly (''substantia gelatinea funiculi umbilicalis'') is a gelatinous substance within the umbilical cord, largely made up of mucopolysaccharides (hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate). It acts as a mucous connective tissue containing ...
for use in various medical treatments. Conkwest was also admitted and is the first organization admitted to LabCentral that's working on treatments for
cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
. In November 2013, Life Technologies Corporation was announced as a major sponsor and American Laboratory Trading was announced as gold sponsors. It was also announced that other organizations such as Bayesian Ventures and 121 Bio moved into LabCentral. In March 2014,
Boston Business Journal The ''Boston Business Journal'' is a weekly, business-oriented newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts. It is published by the American City Business Journals. The newspaper was founded by Robert Bergenheim and launched its first issue on ...
listed LabCentral as one of Johnson & Johnson's six bets made in 2014. LabCentral announced a sponsorship from
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 ...
. The sponsorship allows Pfizer to nominate two startups per year to gain access to lab space at LabCentral. It was also announced that 11 companies currently reside at LabCentral but that 14 would occupy LabCentral by the end of April. In April 2014, Governor of Massachusetts
Deval Patrick Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician, civil rights lawyer, author, and businessman who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was first elected in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney, who ...
helped celebrate the grand opening of Labcentral and announced a capital funding of $5M for LabCentral.


Facilities

LabCentral's original 70,000 square-foot facility is located in an historic, MIT-owned building at 700 Main Street, Cambridge. The company has since expanded across three core locations and is also the operating partner at the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab. To accommodate demand for its growing startups, LabCentral opened LabCentral 610 (33,000 sq. feet) with support from
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 ...
in December 2017. LabCentral opened an additional 100,000 sq. feet of shared laboratory and office space in Fall 2021 at 238 Main Street. Designed with a focus on process development and scale-up for
biomanufacturing Biomanufacturing is a type of manufacturing or biotechnology that utilizes biological systems to produce commercially important biomaterials and biomolecules for use in medicines, food and beverage processing, and industrial applications. Biomanufa ...
, LabCentral 238’s purpose is to facilitate company transitions from R&D bench-scale science into scalable production of pre-clinical material in anticipation of clinical and
GMP GMP may refer to: Finance and economics * Gross metropolitan product * Guaranteed maximum price * Guaranteed Minimum Pension Science and technology * GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library, a software library * Granulocyte-macrophage progenito ...
manufacturing. At its core, LabCentral offers fully functional lab space for as many as 125 start-ups comprising approximately 1000 scientists and entrepreneurs. The LabCentral locations are tailored to address the needs of growing biotechs at different stages of their development. Various equipment is available such as
Mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...
,
electron microscopes An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
, real-time-qPCR,
flow cytometry Flow cytometry (FC) is a technique used to detect and measure physical and chemical characteristics of a population of cells or particles. In this process, a sample containing cells or particles is suspended in a fluid and injected into the flo ...
, chemical hoods,
centrifuges A centrifuge is a device that uses centrifugal force to separate various components of a fluid. This is achieved by spinning the fluid at high speed within a container, thereby separating fluids of different densities (e.g. cream from milk) or l ...
, biosafety cabinets and incubators, BSL-2-rated suites,
High-performance liquid chromatography High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), formerly referred to as high-pressure liquid chromatography, is a technique in analytical chemistry used to separate, identify, and quantify each component in a mixture. It relies on pumps to pa ...
, and plate readers. LabCentral services and offerings include equipment maintenance and technical support, co-working and meeting spaces, safety/compliance training, central waste handling, biosafety permits, events and programming, and business development assistance. On-site CRO support (FTE basis), logistical support, and group purchasing are also provided, as are other programs where pooled access reduces costs.


Application and membership

Prospective resident companies apply via the LabCentral website. If the company is a fit for the LabCentral community, they are invited to pitch to a selection committee consisting of LabCentral’s senior leadership, co-founders and members of the board, as well as representatives from LabCentral's founding sponsors. Applicants with the highest potential are admitted to the community and placed at the site best suited to their needs . Tenants, referred to as "residents", pay a $425 per month fee for membership per person. Benches begin at $4,090 per month. Private lab suites vary in price based on site and size. Additional office space costs $1,000 to $6,000 per month.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:LabCentral American companies established in 2013 Privately held companies based in Massachusetts Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts