COVID-19 Stops Non-Essential Pharma-Bio Capex Projects in California, Pennsylvania, an Industrial Info Market Brief

While the Pharma-Bio Industry is classified as an essential industry in the era of COVID-19, it is becoming apparent that a number of big-ticket projects are being shut down. California and Pennsylvania were the first two states to issue stay-in-place orders, and it soon became clear that non-essential large capex projects had ground to a halt.

In California, Bayer shut down its $150 million cell culture tech center in Berkeley, as did Cytokinetics and its $200 million project in South San Francisco.

Others were issuing a terse "no-comment," as in the case of Alexandria Real Estate Trust. The company has millions of high-ticket life science square feet across the world serving the industry in state-of-the-art soaring towers. Alexandria, along with BioMed Realty Trust and scores of others in this market, usually launch construction prior to securing tenants. Typically, one large major comes along and snaps up the majority of the space and outfits the space with advanced research capabilities investing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ongoing in-plant manufacturing projects, such as Merck and its multiple vaccine projects in West Point, Pennsylvania, appear to be ongoing, albeit there is no staff on hand available to confirm it. All non-essential personnel have been sent home.