Dr. Whitney Snider on Collaborative Campuses That Fuel Innovation

Whitney Snider is the Head of Alexandria's LaunchLabs and the VP of Alexandria Venture Investments. Alexandria Real Estate Equities is a real estate investment trust that provides housing and labs for life science and tech companies. Whitney will share what ARE is doing to fuel innovation through collaborative campuses.

Whitney's Background

Whitney works at Alexandria Real Estate Equities and is involved in venture investment activity growing the life science cluster in New York City. Focused on collaborative campuses for life science, technology, and agTech companies, Alexandria brings companies together. They help grow collaborative ecosystems that fuel better innovation.

The concentration of Alexandria's portfolio is in some of the most innovative cities in the U.S. This includes Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and New York. Alexandria started with a vision to create a new kind of real estate company focused on the life science industry. Unique team collaborations contributed to their success as an established leader in the industry.

Collaborative Campuses

Alexandria uses four elements to fuel innovation through its collaborative campuses. The first is vocation, where they're at locations with quality housing, good transportation, etc. The second is innovation, where Alexandria evaluates and searches to find opportunities no one has jumped on yet. Then there is talent, where Alexandria focuses on building a solid pipeline to grow the company. Lastly, there is the capital, which is needed to fuel and fund innovation at all levels. You need these elements to support your ideas.

Alexandria's collaboration campuses range from some of the world's biggest pharma companies to top-tier upstarts. With this diversity, there is a co-mingling of talent and energy that allows for more growth.

Alexandria's venture and investments arm focuses on funding early growth stage companies through a built platform. This venture expands its reach and providing mentorship and capital to cultivate innovation that will improve human health.

Fueling Innovation with LaunchLabs

Alexandria has LaunchLabs sites on many of their major U.S campuses. LaunchLabs looks for up-and-coming companies in their regions. Then, they identify which ones could use their lab and mentoring infrastructure to become a new star. Alexandria tailors what they do to the specific region they are operating in. They work with teams, pinpoint their needs, and find the necessary resources to improve them. They work to push companies into the next stage of growth.

Currently, over one hundred of Alexandria's tenants and investments are working on COVID-19 solutions. Due to COVID, they had to adapt their buildings and launch initiatives to enhance their tenants' safety measures.

Alexandria formed a dedicated COVID-19 advisory board to improve and provide insights on the pandemic. As I've learned, there is no playbook when it comes to things like COVID. Having good processes and knowing when to change the process is vital to succeeding in times of disruptive shock.

The Future of ARE

Currently, there are 10,000 diseases known to humankind, with only 10% having some available treatment. Alexandria believes they are on the edge of a biology revolution. They want to find innovative ways to treat the world's major health issues.

Through COVID-19, it has been amazing to see the development of successful vaccines under high levels of pressure. Please don't underestimate the power of human ingenuity and collaboration when it comes to innovating solutions.

If you want to keep up to date with what ARE is doing, check out their website here. Check out Whitney Snider's LinkedIn here.

About our Guest: Whitney Snider

At Alexandria, Whitney supports Alexandria's venture investment activity and other strategic initiatives to grow the New York City life science cluster.  She also oversees general management, operations, business development, member recruitment, and programming for Alexandria LaunchLabs in New York City.

Whitney was formerly at an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City. She spent two-and-a-half years at Celgene as Director in the Business Development group. Previously, she was a Consultant at Bain & Company in both its Boston and New York offices. She received her Master of Business Administration degree with High Distinction from Harvard Business School and her Doctor of Medicine degree from Tufts University School of Medicine.

To know more about Whitney Snider and ARE listen to this week's show: Dr. Whitney Snider on Collaborative Campuses That Fuel Innovation.