Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., a Bay Area maker of medical testing and research products, is beefing up its local operations after signing one of the larger leases here of late.
The company, based in Hercules north of Oakland, recently signed a deal for 280,927 square feet of office and laboratory space in Irvine.
The 10-year lease for three buildings in the Irvine Spectrum is an expansion of nearly 95,000 square feet of space here for Bio-Rad, according to brokers who worked on the deal.
That’s one of the bigger recent expansions in office space in the county.
The lease includes a renewal for Bio-Rad’s main Irvine office in the Jeronimo Business Park, just off Alton Parkway. That building, at 9500 Jeronimo Road, totals about 186,000 square feet, according to records. The company last renewed a lease for that space in 2007.
New for Bio-Rad is a pair of smaller buildings about two miles away on Technology Drive, just off the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway, according to officials with the Newport Beach office of tenant brokerage Cresa Partners, which represented Bio-Rad in the lease.
No Ribbon Cutting
Don’t expect to see a big ribbon cutting ceremony—Bio-Rad’s keeping mum on plans for its local operations.
Bio-Rad is expected to use the buildings for office and lab space, according to Ken Ward, managing principal for Cresa’s Orange County operations, who worked on the deal with colleague Brett Merz.
All three of the buildings are owned by Newport Beach’s Irvine Company. The landlord also declined to comment for this story.
The new space that Bio-Rad’s taking would be enough for several hundred employees.
Whether they’re being relocated from elsewhere or Bio-Rad is planning new hires is unknown.
Officials with Bio-Rad declined to comment on specifics of the expansion or on the nature of the company’s work in Irvine.
“We consider this proprietary information that we do not share,” said Tina Cuccia, a company spokeswoman.
Bio-Rad makes instruments, chemicals, software and other products used by laboratories running tests for doctors and by researchers at medical schools, drug makers, government agencies and food testing laboratories.
The publicly traded company has yearly sales of about $2 billion and a recent market value of $3 billion.
Rivals include Brea-based Beckman Coulter Inc., Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Abbott Laboratories of the Chicago area, among others.
Bio-Rad is advertising to fill positions at its Irvine operations. Its website lists open spots for chemists, manufacturing engineers, senior-level scientists and technical support personnel.
California Offices
Irvine is one of the company’s four locations in California and the only one in Southern California, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company’s clinical diagnostics segment, which includes the company’s Irvine operations, makes and sells automated test systems, test kits and specialized quality controls for labs, doctors and hospitals.
The county’s last notable real estate deal tied to healthcare was a relocation. Los Angeles-based Abraxis BioScience Inc. bought a building and moved its research and development operations to Costa Mesa early last year.
The cancer drug maker took over offices that once housed drug maker ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., which now known goes as Valeant Pharmaceuticals International and is based in Canada.
Abraxis bought the Costa Mesa building in 2009 for about $30.5 million. It moved about 100 people from Marina del Rey as part of the relocation.
Celgene Corp. of New Jersey bought Abraxis last year.
Bio-Rad’s local expansion ranks among the biggest seen here of late, along an additional 100,000 square feet leased by Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc., which last year took over two buildings near its Irvine Spectrum headquarters.
That deal, announced about two months ago, increased the online video game maker’s local office space by nearly 40%.
At a Glance
Bio-Rad Laboratories
Headquarters: Bay Area’s Hercules<br >Local operations: Medical diagnostic, research products<br > Space: 280,927 square feet in three buildings in Irvine<br >Notable: Expansion of 95,00 square feet with renewal
