Business & Tech
Boston Biomedical Research Institute Reportedly Putting Watertown Headquarters Up for Sale
The research institute's board of trustees voted to put the Grove Street property up for sale.
Watertown-based Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI) will seek offers to buy its headquarters at 64 Grove Street after the group's board of trustees agreed to a "dissolution of the company" in September.
The company has had five straight years of net-asset decline, according to a report in the Boston Business Journal. The most recent fiscal year saw BBRI report a $2.5 million drop in net assets, according to the Boston Business Journal.
Charles Emerson, a senior scientist and director of the institute, told the Boston Globe that BBRI has suffered from the drop in funding from the National Institute of Health.
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“We’ve been crunched,” Emerson said. “Our main business plan is NIH funding and we tried. . . . On the overall picture, it’s not been very successful the last two years with grants.”
While the board of trustees have voted to move toward dissolution of BBRI, the members, the controlling members of the institute, will not vote on the decision until Thursday, the Boston Business Journal reports.
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The Boston Globe interviewed Sherwin Sam Lehrer, a tenured senior scientist at the institute, who said he does not believe enough has been done to save the institute.
“I oppose it partly because, even though it’s a dire situation, I think that there could have been ways” to save it, Lehrer said.
BBRI was founded in 1968 in Boston to focus on medical research at the molecular level. The institute acquired the headquarters in 1999, according to the Boston Business Journal.
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