City officials in Somerville have offered medical device maker TransMedics a $17.7 million tax break to relocate and fill one of the city’s vacant spec-build lab towers: BioMed Realty’s 495,000-square-foot Assembly Innovation Park. Image courtesy of BioMed Realty
An Andover-based organ transplant company leased a vacant lab tower in Somerville and acquired adjacent properties for $30 million.
TransMedics Group will establish its new headquarters at 188 Assembly Park Drive, a 12-story office-lab tower completed in 2024 as the first phase of BioMed Realty’s original plans for a three-building, 1.5 million square-foot development known as Assembly Innovation Park.
TransMedics’ lease calls for $23.9 million in annual base rent, according to an SEC filing, or approximately $48 per square foot.
The company also acquired two adjacent parcels from BioMed Realty for a combined $30 million totaling approximately 4 acres, which contain an office building and parking, TransMedics spokesman Nick Corcoran said.
“The campus was designed to provide flexibility and operational resilience that companies like TransMedics need to accelerate innovation and change lives,” BioMed Realty President of East Coast and U.K. Markets Bill Kane said in a statement.
Currently headquartered at 200 Minuteman Road in Andover, Transmedics also received an $18 million tax break from Somerville officials to make the move to Assembly Square.
Upon scheduled completion of its buildout in January 2028, the 188 Assembly Park Drive building will include corporate, R&D and advanced manufacturing space.
The lease gives a boost to Somerville’s struggling lab market. Developers including BioMed Realty and Greystar broke ground on lab towers just as life science industry expansion was waning amid declining venture capital funding.
At the end of 2025, the vacancy rate in the 2.8 million square-foot north inner suburban submarket was 69 percent, according to CBRE.
“Establishing our new global headquarters at Assembly Innovation Park, places TransMedics at the center of the Greater Boston life sciences ecosystem, in close proximity to leading academic institutions, clinical transplant centers, and a deep pool of scientific, engineering, and operational talent,” CEO Waleed Hassanein said in a statement.
An incentive package negotiated with the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center would give the company tax breaks of up to $30,000 per new permanent job created from 2026 through 2013 in Massachusetts, with a target of 600 new jobs.
