Bay Area Life Science Report: Sector must adapt to market shifts amid pullback in investment

The San Francisco Bay Area life-sciences market continues to experience unprecedented growth heading into the second half of 2022, according to a report by Newmark.

Demand from life-sciences companies continues to drive commercial real estate activity across the region and was 4.4 million square feet this quarter, which is the same as the previous quarter but down from 5.4 million square feet one year ago. Market-wide vacancy increased to 6.9 percent this quarter, up from 5.7 percent in the previous quarter, while availability increased to 7.7 percent, up from 6.6 percent in the previous quarter. On the sublease front, vacancy counted for 2.3 percent of the total inventory, compared to 1.4 percent in the previous quarter. There were 13 leases greater than 20,000 square feet executed this quarter, compared with five in the previous quarter and 10 one year ago. Drug developer Eikon Therapeutics completed the largest deal of the quarter, pre-leasing 290,000 square feet at Alexan