June 5, 2020

Essential Science Moving Forward at LabCentral

Governor Baker and Lieutenant Governor Polito had the chance to spotlight workplace safety standards for laboratories and hear about research work being done to push back against COVID-19 at LabCentral. The visit offered an opportunity to highlight the important work LabCentral startups are doing to combat COVID-19 (aka COVIDBusters): E25Bio, Affinivax Inc., and HelixNano.

According to the Cambridge-based incubator, its startups have created 2,400 new jobs in Massachusetts since 2014, raised $1.1 billion in venture capital funding in 2019 alone, and raised more than 20 percent of national Series A funding in biotechnology in 2019.

In October 2019, the Baker-Polito Administration announced a $5 million grant to LabCentral to fund a new resource for the life sciences industry and the local bio-economy with LabCentral 238, a fully functional life sciences laboratory with a focus on scale-up bio-manufacturing comprising approximately 100,000 square feet.