Alexandria Real Estate Equities is a REIT that owns laboratory and life science campuses in the research hubs of Boston, San Francisco, San Diego and a handful of other clusters. Its tenants are pharmaceutical companies, biotechs and research institutions that need specialized ventilation, power and lab infrastructure ordinary offices cannot provide. Purpose-built space and campus ecosystems near universities create tenant loyalty that generic landlords lack. Founded in 1994, Alexandria effectively invented lab real estate as an institutional asset class.