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Clement Fourny
Vice president of commercial, SmartLabs
Age: 43
Industry experience: 10 years
SmartLabs has begun transforming the top floor of former retail space at the CambridgeSide property into a new life science research center designed with a broad spectrum of the local industry’s startups in mind. At over 157,000 square feet, the East Cambridge location will include a mix of research and cGMP space, enabling local biotechs to take their next steps toward commercialization without the disruption of relocating. Clement Fourny oversees the eight-year-old company’s real estate including its existing research centers on Erie and Binney streets in Cambridge, Boston Landing in Brighton and 6 Tide St. in the Seaport District. Before joining SmartLabs in February, Fourny was a real estate executive for Cytiva.
Q: How does your business model differ from a life science incubator?
A: We place significant importance in protecting the intellectual property of the companies in our platform. In essence, everything is private: the R&D lab, space, the office space, the vivariums and the cGMP space. We place the bar very low for the timing in which customers can join us, and they have the opportunity to scale up. We want to preserve the cash of the customers, so they can leverage that cash to support the science.
Q: How does SmartLabs differentiate its property model in a crowded field of real estate space providers for early-stage biotech?
A: Including cGMP is not only a differentiator, but an opportunity for us to create a lot more value for our customers’ growth in a single location across the entire R&D journey, giving the ability to scale to an additional footprint but also getting access to cleanrooms and additional capital.
Q: Does SmartLabs invest in member companies?
A: That is not part of our model. What we really do is make sure we help accelerate the pace that they develop their scientific program by giving them rapid access to state-of-the-art labs in prime locations across the major North American hubs, and providing a great deal of in-house expertise and support from our technicians for lab operations.
Q: What characteristics do you use to evaluate potential sites?
A: For buildings, we place a lot of importance in targeting prime locations. That creates opportunities in our platform for partnerships, and to attract talent in a very competitive environment. We have unique solutions that are really designed to accommodate any form of science, and we are agnostic about the type of companies that join us: large enterprise pharmaceutical, medtech and early-stage.
Q: What is the timetable for completion of the CambridgeSide location?
A: We just inherited the space from the developer and it’s going to be built out by late 2024 and early 2025. It’s a core-and-shell on the third floor, and is going to be built out to use our proprietary Universal Lab Framework platform.
Q: How does the business arrangement with member companies work?
A: It is a subscription mode, where you pay monthly license fees that include everything from the space to access to the experts to utilities. It includes community activities and a wide range of operational services from the experts who sit in those facilities.
Q: How does the pullback in venture capital spending affect your business?
A: The funding market is clearly softer. It doesn’t mean funding is unavailable, but it is being deployed at a more conservative pace. Our solutions are specifically developed for that environment. I happen to believe VCs will see a lot of interest in solutions like SmartLabs that allow for the preservation of cash, and putting it toward talent and extending the science. In this market, timing is absolutely critical and we have the ability to move customers into their dedicated spaces in as little as two weeks after they sign a very simple license agreement. In an industry that has a very high failure rate, it is very critical to have the opportunity to be flexible. We offer terms in our license agreement that can be very short term. If you succeed you can move to the next stage outside of our program inside. If you fail, you can exit our program and unwind your company without penalties.
Fourny’s Five Favorite Places He’s Lived
- Vietnam
- Singapore
- Malaysia
- Argentina
- Poland
