Merck to invest $ 115 mn for expansion of life science campus in Massachusetts

The campus will serve as a premier global customer destination, housing both a customer service and call center and an M Lab Collaboration Center - a state-of-the-art, shared, exploratory environment where the company’s scientists and engineers work together with customers to help solve their toughest life science challenges. The M Lab Collaboration Center will be one of nine centers worldwide created specifically for collaboration, where hands-on training, customer experiments and application troubleshooting take place in a non-GMP environment. Other locations will include Brazil, China, France, India, Singapore and South Korea. This new enhanced M Lab center in Burlington (Massachusetts) will replace the flagship M Lab at the company’s Billerica (Massachusetts) facility.

“For nearly a decade, Merck has built a significant presence in Massachusetts and we are extremely pleased to support their expansion in Burlington through the MassWorks Infrastructure Program,” said Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker. “Building long-lasting public-private partnerships is vital to growing our economy, and the Merck campus represents significant investment and confidence in our shared future as a global life science center.”

Merck’s 850 full-time Billerica-based life science employees will relocate to the new campus when construction is complete in the second half of 2017.

The $115 million building will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified – the rating system that is the most widely used third-party verification for green construction, certifying buildings that promote sustainability, resource conservation and human health.