When LabCentral celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, it was a bittersweet moment.
The incubator has helped hundreds of biotechs launch and gain their footing. But startups, especially those with no clinical data yet, are struggling to attract capital as financing has dried up across the industry. LabCentral, a key player in the startup scene in the Boston area, found itself in a unique position: Its lab spaces weren’t as exclusive as they used to be.
Johannes Fruehauf“It has, unfortunately, gotten somewhat less selective in the past year or year and a half because of the crisis in our sector,” LabCentral founder and president Johannes Fruehauf said in an interview with Endpoints News. “They have a real funding slump when you look at the national numbers.”
For years, biotech entrepreneurs vied for a spot in one of LabCentral’s six locations. Founders wanted access to the LabCentral community for its proximity to other experts in the field and the chance to get in front of potential pharma partners early. Only about one in four or five applicants would get in. Affinivax, a developer of pneumococcal vaccines that joined LabCentral in 2014, sold to GSK for $2.1 billion in 2022.
“I hope that we will soon be back to having many more applicants than we have slots, but right now it’s easier to get in than it used to be,” Fruehauf said.
Despite the easier bar to entry amid the industry downturn, the organization has still grown beyond Fruehauf’s expectations. An estimated 6,300 life science and biotech jobs have been created out of 278 startups that have been a part of LabCentral. Fruehauf said he initially expected 1,000 jobs would be created in the first 10 years after the organization first received a $5 million grant from Massachusetts Life Sciences Center in 2013.
“I had no idea about the enormous dynamism, the energy and economic potential that these startups have, and LabCentral’s success is honestly beyond my wildest hopes and expectations than I had when we started this,” he said.
On Tuesday, LabCentral published its annual report, which includes a look back at the organization’s role in the Massachusetts biotech landscape over those 10 years.
Companies at LabCentral have raised about $18.4 billion from early-stage venture capital, licensing deals and other sources (not including M&A). About $1.7 billion of that came last year. And so far, roughly 15,000 people have been dosed or enrolled in 132 clinical trials launched by startups based at LabCentral.
“Unfortunately, we cannot yet celebrate an approved drug that was invented here, but I think it’s really only a matter of time until we’ll have that achievement to celebrate,” Fruehauf said.