While Montgomery County’s life science industry is expected to see continued growth, the I-270 corridor in which many of the business are located is running out of space for them to grow. As reported in The Washington Business Journal:

In the recent survey of more than 100 biotech and life sciences companies in Greater Washington — the majority from Montgomery County — 87 percent indicated plans to hire in the next 12 to 24 months. Six in 10 said they planned to expand their lab space by 5,000 square feet in the next 12 to 24 months.

“Incubators are starting to say, ‘It’s time to get out on your own,'” Brady said about life sciences companies on the smaller end of the spectrum. At the same time, mid-size companies are starting to ramp up growth and larger companies such as Novavax Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline have been taking larger pieces of real estate.

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The vacancy rate for lab space in the I-270 corridor is 7.8 percent, which represents approximately 605,000 square feet of available lab space in a 7.6 million-square-foot-market. This is down sharply from January, when the vacancy rate was more than 12 percent with 970,000 square feet available.

For more information read the full article in The Washington Business Journal.