Roche, Genentech Open Boston R&D Center for Cardiometabolic Research

The Roche Genentech Innovation Center Boston, located at Harvard University’s Enterprise Research Campus in Allston, will support research spanning early-stage drug discovery through late-stage clinical development.

Roche and Genentech have opened a 95,000-square-foot research and development center in Boston focused on cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic diseases, bringing together drug discovery, clinical development, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science teams.

The Roche Genentech Innovation Center Boston, located at Harvard University’s Enterprise Research Campus in Allston, will support research spanning early-stage drug discovery through late-stage clinical development.

The center will focus on conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Roche and Genentech said researchers will study the shared biology across these conditions to inform drug development and potential integrated treatment approaches.

Researchers from Roche Product Development and Genentech Research and Early Development will use AI, machine learning and data science across the research process.

Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee said the center brings the company’s scientists into Boston’s research ecosystem while combining disease biology expertise with AI and data science.

Roche and Genentech have signed a 10-year lease for the facility, which can accommodate up to 500 employees across research, clinical development, data science and related functions.

The Boston center adds to Roche and Genentech’s existing R&D operations in South San Francisco and Basel, Switzerland. It is also part of the companies’ previously announced $50 billion commitment to US manufacturing and R&D.

Roche and Genentech currently employ approximately 25,000 people across 15 R&D centers and 13 manufacturing sites in the US.

Roche Expands AI Focus in Drug Discovery

The Boston R&D center comes as Roche continues to expand its use of AI in pharmaceutical research. In March, Roche expanded its partnership with NVIDIA to establish a hybrid-cloud AI factory for drug discovery and research.

The infrastructure includes more than 3,500 NVIDIA Blackwell graphics processing units across on-premises and cloud environments. Roche said the system will enable researchers to test hypotheses at scale, analyze large datasets and develop predictive models for drug development.

Other pharmaceutical companies are also investing in AI-focused research infrastructure. Eli Lilly and NVIDIA announced plans in January to establish an AI co-innovation laboratory in the San Francisco area, with investments of up to $1 billion over five years.

Earlier this week, Anthropic and Novo Nordisk announced a partnership to apply Anthropic’s Claude AI models to drug discovery, scientific workflows and software development.

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