Atreca to Exit Alexandria Life Science Campus in San Carlos

After laying off four out of 10 workers, Atreca will bag the lease for its headquarters and 100,000 square feet of life science offices in San Carlos.

The cancer drug company has ended its lease 10 years early at 835 Industrial Road, Bisnow reported, citing a regulatory filing. The six-story, 278,000-square-foot building is owned by Alexandria Real Estate Equities, based in Pasadena.

Atreca leased part of the Alexandria District for Science & Technology building in 2019, and moved into its headquarters there a year later. The drugmaker will vacate the property by Nov. 30.

“The agreement to terminate our lease agreement dramatically reduces our ongoing operating expenses and helps to extend our cash runway through the first quarter of 2024,” Atreca CEO John Orwin said in a statement.

The early exit will cost Atreca $5 million, but save the company $13 million a year in rent.

Astreca stopped development on its most promising drug, FierceBiotech reported, and last month laid off 40 percent of its workforce. The financially troubled biotech firm was once a favorite partner of Big Pharma giants Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Pfizer.

Alexandria, whose 560,000-square-foot Alexandria Center for Life Science campus opened with Atreca as a major tenant, appears to have found a replacement tenant.

“We are in negotiations to re-lease the entire space,” Alexandria Executive Chairman and founder Joel Marcus told Bisnow in an email

Life science real estate in the Bay Area and beyond was hot until earlier this year, when it began cooling slightly because of a drop-off in venture capital spending and a spike in new product delivery.

The Bay Area life sciences market is still relatively stable, with rents averaging about $6.66 per square foot in the second quarter, according to a Newmark report.

— Dana Bartholomew