Voit Real Estate Services Life Sciences Advisory Group

Life Sciences real estate, decided with the full picture in view.

A San Diego tenant representation practice for life science companies. We help founders, operators, and growth-stage teams make lab and office decisions with the strategic context that early planning makes possible.

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Life Sciences
A practice scope, not a service line. We do not work outside life science real estate in San Diego.
Advisory first
We model lab decisions against the full operating picture: hiring plans, capital position, milestone schedules, and scientific direction. The lease is one piece of a larger question.
Long horizon
Engagements typically begin 24 to 36 months before a lease event. The planning phase is where the consequential decisions are made.
San Diego
Sorrento Valley, Sorrento Mesa, Torrey Pines, UTC, Miramar, and adjacent submarkets.
What we do

We represent life science companies on every lab and office decision they face, from a founder's first space through expansion, relocation, renewal, and consolidation. We start the conversation early, model decisions with the full operating picture in view, and treat the lease as one piece of a larger strategic question rather than the question itself.

How we work

Three principles that shape every engagement.

01

Early-stage planning over late-stage execution

The most valuable real estate decisions are made well before a lease is signed. Eighteen to thirty-six months out is when the option set is widest, the leverage is real, and the company has time to use the market rather than react to it. We work with clients early, often before there is a defined transaction in motion, because that is where most of the value gets created. Late-stage execution still matters, but it is execution against decisions that have already been made.

02

The full picture, not just the lease

A lab decision is an operating decision. Hiring plans, capital efficiency, scientific milestones, recruiting geography, build-out timing, and the next funding round all shape what the right answer looks like. We model the operating picture alongside the real estate, because a lease that looks favorable on its own can be the wrong decision when measured against runway, hiring velocity, or a 24-month milestone schedule. The right answer for the company is rarely the same as the cheapest option on the spreadsheet.

03

Lab fluency, not just real estate fluency

Lab real estate is its own discipline. ISO classification, HVAC and air-change requirements, lab gas distribution, drainage and acid waste, generator and emergency power, vibration tolerance, ceiling height, structural loading, the difference between a generic lab shell and a fitted lab: all of these affect what a building can support, what a buildout will cost, and where the leverage points sit in negotiation. Fluency in those details changes the questions we ask, the proposals we surface, and the terms we hold the line on.

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Market Research

The latest quarterly read on San Diego life science.

Our quarterly market report covers the submarkets, deal terms, and trends that shape decisions for life science tenants. New reports publish each quarter; case studies and short-form analysis will follow.

Market Report · Q1 2026

San Diego Life Science Market Report, Q1 2026

The full quarterly read. Direct and sublease availability by submarket, asking rents and concessions on fitted versus generic space, deliveries through 2026, and a candid view of which assets are leasing and which are not.

Next report: Q2 2026, publishing July 2026.

Learning Events

Learning Events

We host two ongoing series for the San Diego life science community. Both are educational by design. No pitch, no selling.

Aug 2026 11
Founder Dinner · Invitation

AI-native life science: where wet lab assumptions break

Sorrento Valley, 6:30pm. Twelve seats. Eighty minutes of structured conversation, then dinner. Hosted with operators in computational biology and protein design.
Sep 2026 9
Learning Series · Open Registration

Real Estate 101: Lab space for life science startups and incubator companies

UTC, 8:00am. A practical overview of how San Diego lab leasing works — what to look for when you're ready to leave incubator space, what decisions to make early, and what the numbers actually mean. For founders and ops leaders at seed to Series B.
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The team

The team

Miles Arnold
Co-Lead, Life Sciences Advisory Group

Miles co-leads the practice and focuses on tenant strategy, deal economics, and the analytical layer of every transaction. He works closely with founders and operators to model occupancy cost against operating reality, structure leases for the next inflection point, and bring quantitative discipline to decisions that are too often made on instinct.

(858) 997-4800 · marnold@voitco.com DRE License #02094013
Chris Durbin
Co-Lead, Life Sciences Advisory Group

Chris co-leads the practice and brings deep technical fluency in lab buildings, infrastructure, and work-letter strategy. He has worked across San Diego's lab market through multiple cycles, and tenants rely on him to translate landlord proposals, lab specs, and TI scopes into language they can actually act on.

(858) 458-3339 · cdurbin@voitco.com DRE License #02227661
About the practice →
Talk to the team

Thinking about your next lab decision?

Whether you are eighteen months from a lease expiration, planning a Series A space, or trying to make sense of a landlord proposal that just landed in your inbox, we are happy to talk. No obligation, no pitch.

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