BioMed Realty Buys Pfizer’s San Diego Office Campus for $255M

BioMed Realty has made a big long-term bet on demand in San Diego’s life science sector with a $255M acquisition of Pfizer’s sprawling research campus in the city.

The five-building office complex, located on Science Center Drive in the Torrey Pines neighborhood of La Jolla, encompasses nearly 631,000 square feet. The buildings at the complex opened between 1998 and 2004.

Pfizer decided to sell the campus after inking a 15-year deal last year to lease 230,000 square feet at Breakthrough’s newly built Torrey Heights life science hub. Since the end of last year, the pharmaceuticals giant has been transitioning into the new location in the Del Mar Heights-Carmel Valley neighborhood, CoStar News reported.

The purchase of the Pfizer campus increases San Diego-based BioMed’s footprint in the metro to 2.9M square feet. BioMed said in a statement that it plans to offer “a best-in-class setting in support of our tenant’s missions to advance human health.”

The portfolio firm of Blackstone said it decided to expand in Torrey Pines because the neighborhood has become the premier San Diego submarket for life science facilities, home to some of the country’s top research institutions and pharmaceutical R&D programs.

BioMed’s $255M acquisition was one of the highest-priced real estate deals in San Diego this year, eclipsed only by MG Properties’ $309M acquisition of Park 12 Apartments. MG’s deal for the 35-story residential tower was the third-largest apartment acquisition in San Diego's history.

Meanwhile, San Diego’s life science market entered 2025 with an 18% vacancy rate, its highest level in more than 15 years. The region’s availability rate, including sublease space, topped 30%, according to CoStar data.

At the end of the fourth quarter, the Central San Diego lab market recorded 405K square feet of positive net absorption, driven by completions of the 80K square foot Boundless building in Torrey Pines and the 306K square foot Neurocine campus on the 56-Corridor. The strong Q4 absorption put the overall 2024 total for life science net absorption into the black at 241K square feet, according to CBRE data.

However, downward pressure on effective rents has accelerated, as concessions continue to increase with the rise in available inventory currently at an all-time high. At the beginning of 2025, there was 1.4M square feet of life science lab space under construction in Central San Diego. Of which 46%, is preleased.

“Tenants looking for lab space have taken a more conservative approach lately, looking for ways to make the funding last longer,” CBRE said.