Life Sciences 2020: The Future is Here

of space available at high rents in Manhattan. If Manhattan is removed from the calculation, the average rent for the rest of the markets is 32.02 psf. Importantly, the strong underlying growth trend, driven by innovation and capital, has led to resilience even in economic downturns. Since 2000, employment in life sciences has increased 87.9% compared to 14.4% for the U.S. as a whole. In each of the two economic downturns since 2000, employment in the life sciences industry has continued to increase, outperforming employment in the economy as a whole and the tech sector.

This employment resilience strongly suggests that the powerful fundamental drivers of growth—an aging population, rising investment in medical and life sciences research and rapidly evolving technology—are likely to support life sciences lab values even in the event of an economic downturn. In Summary With the strong underlying fundamentals it looks like the life sciences era is here. Over the past decade there has been an explosion of new technologies, processes and innovations in life sciences, setting the stage for strong growth for lab space for the foreseeable future. Will there be cyclical swings? Yes—most likely. But the life sciences industry is better able to weather the inevitable ups and downs of economy compared to other sectors.

EMPLOYMENT CHANGE IN RECESSIONS

Total

Technology Life Sciences

-6.5% -5.0% -3.5% -2.0% -0.5% 1.0% 2.5% 4.0%

2.5%

0.3%

-0.3%

-0.8% -1.2% -1.7%

-2.7%

-5.0%

-6.0% 2001

1990-91

2007-2009

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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