Massachusetts and California have been well-known as biotech hubs for quite some time. Now New York City is seeing a surge in bio company activity.

As pointed out in a BioSpace.com article in May 2016, Cellectis in 2015 joined other bio firms such as Pfizer, Lilly, and Roche with a home base in Manhattan. During April 2015, Paris-based Cellectis inked a deal for a new 12,000-square-foot facility, including state-of-the-art research labs. The company moved to NYC to develop its engineered CAR-T cells for treating cancers including leukemia and solid tumors. Cellectis also selected its new location at the Alexandria Center because of the presence of various biotech companies, academic, and medical institutions in the area. According to the article, other pluses of Cellectis relocating to New York included the amount of local “robust financial” markets that can be tapped into for funding R&D as well as an easier ability to attract new talent in New York because there is less “cut-throat competition.”

Cellectis management also told BioSpace.com that another highlight to having home digs in New York is access to increasing venture capitalists. For 2015, there was $256.5 million raised in New York state versus $53.7 million in 2014. Despite that acceleration, New York still lags far behind Massachusetts and California, which represented a combined $6.8 billion in venture capital raised during 2015.