Roche  announced  the launch of the Roche Genentech Innovation Center Boston at Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus in Allston which will further strengthen the long-standing partnership in areas such as disease biology, engineering, and artificial intelligence / machine learning.

The Roche Genentech Innovation Center Boston will serve as Roche’s Cardiovascular, Renal, and Metabolism (CVRM) hub, establishing a significant end-to-end R&D presence in CVRM. It will also support some of Roche’s and Genentech’s efforts in AI and data science to accelerate drug discovery and development. The laboratories will be equipped for advanced research, and over time the center could employ up to 500 people. Manu Chakravarthy, SVP and Global Head of CVRM Product Development, will be the center’s site head.

With the new center, Roche and Genentech are expanding their presence within the Greater Boston innovation ecosystem, leveraging local talent and anchoring an entrepreneurial hub at Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus. This new investment highlights Roche's dedication to advancing healthcare through academic and scientific collaboration and will serve to strengthen an existing relationship between Harvard and Roche that has been in place for well over a decade. These drug discovery efforts have included work to combat antibiotic resistant bacteria as well as the use of AI in cancer research to identify targeted approaches to treatment and to analyse the effectiveness of new cancer drugs in clinical trials.