By Hannah Green
Moderna Inc. officially opened the doors to its new global headquarters on Wednesday, fulfilling its plan to bring its research and development operations under one roof.
The Cambridge drugmaker has moved into a six-floor, 462,000-square-foot office and lab building at 325 Binney St.
Moderna (Nasdaq: MRNA) first shared its intention to move into a new Cambridge headquarters back in 2021 in an announcement with developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Moderna was previously based out of 200 Technology Square in Cambridge, but outgrew that headquarters and began occupying space in neighboring buildings like 1 Hampshire St. and 141 Portland St. According to the company’s annual report filed in February, its Technology Square campus encompasses 292,000 square feet, and its lease there expires in 2025.
“(We had) people spread out across multiple buildings on multiple floors and what we wanted to do is to bring everybody under one roof to drive the innovation that has led to Moderna’s success,” said John Joyal, chief operating officer of research and campus head.
Joyal said 1,700 employees are now assigned to 325 Binney St., though not all of those employees come into the office every day. About 90,000 square feet of the new building is laboratory space, where about 700 scientists will work, Joyal added.
Moderna reported 5,600 full-time employees in 19 countries at the start of 2024.
“All of our products are developed by the folks that are working in all the labs in this building,” Joyal said.
Moderna recently won FDA approval for a second product in addition to its Covid-19 vaccine, an mRNA vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Employees began moving into the new headquarters in February and March, Joyal said, and more than 95% of employees are now in the new Binney Street building. He expects the rest of the team to move there in November.
Building a sustainable lab building
Sara Briggs, Moderna’s director of workplace design and space planning, said the company’s new headquarters is more sustainable than any lab building in Cambridge. The building features triple-glazed windows for insulation and a roof that collects rainwater for use in the building’s cooling system and to water its plant life inside and outside.
The headquarters is heated and cooled through geothermal wells onsite, Briggs said.
Moderna’s building also has solar panels on the roof to provide electricity to the building. The company said it buys any additional electricity needed from a solar farm in New England.
Flexible working styles
Moderna wanted to make the layout of its new headquarters flexible so the building can grow alongside the company, Briggs said.
“Different neurodiversities, people work differently, learn differently. So you’ll see … the variety of workspace types,” Briggs said.
Most employees don’t have assigned desks and can reserve different workspaces and meeting rooms via a mobile app, Briggs said. Those range from phone booths to standing desks to workstations with a privacy shield.
The labs are also modular and everything can be moved around, Joyal said.
“As we change priorities, as we add new programs or finish up on programs, this space can be redesigned,” Joyal said.
The company is putting sensors throughout the building’s ceiling to create a heat map of the most trafficked areas of the building.
“We’re using all the technology in this very tech-driven building to help us grow and have a jumping-off point for making decisions in the future,” Briggs said.