ALS TDI moves to Arsenal Yards, Windgap Medical’s Big Pharma Collab, and Watertown’s Q1 fundraising numbers
Plus Addgene’s rebrand and Earth Day clean ups.
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705 Mount Auburn offers both built out and shell lab space options along with a best-in-class onsite amenity package.
The Q1 2026 fundraising numbers are out, but before jumping in, we wanted to highlight two opportunities for companies looking to engage with the Watertown Community. The first is the Watertown Business Coalitions’ upcoming Community STEM Night on April 29th, highlighting both STEM opportunities at Watertown Public Schools and their connections to the local STEM company partners. The second is Watertown Helps Out, a collection of volunteer community service opportunities across the month of May. Sign up here. If you find events like these and our newsletters informative, consider supporting our work.
ALS Therapy Development Institute Announces Move to Arsenal Yards
The ALS Therapy Development Institute (headquartered at 480 Arsenal Way) announced (video) that they are expanding across the street into space at Arsenal Yards. Enabled by a commitment from Augie’s Quest, ALS TDI will double their current lab space and occupy approximately 33,300 sqft at 200 Arsenal Yards Blvd, in the space formerly occupied by SQZ Biotech (Incidentally, Armon Sharei, the former founder of SQZ had started a new company, Portal Bio, which is headquartered at BioLabs on Coolidge Ave). ALS TDI describes themselves as the “world’s first and largest biotech focused 100 percent on ALS research.” The institute was founded in Newton in 1999, and operated a lab in Cambridge for a number of years before expanding to Watertown 2021.
ALS TDI has developed and licensed several potential therapies for ALS, such as the anti-CD40L antibody Tegoprubart (licensed to Eledon Pharmaceuticals). The Institute has also initiated the ALS Research Collaborative Study (partially supported by funds from the Ice Bucket Challenge), an observational study where ALS patients can contribute medical records, biometric data, and biological specimens to help scientists research ALS. The data collected from this study has been used in collaboration with Google to develop an AI speech recognition app for people with ALS, develops new methods of monitoring ALS disease progression, and develop a patient-derived iPSC motor neuron biobank to improve access to cellular models for ALS research. According to their press release, ALS TDI says the new space will enable them to expand their team and accelerate these research efforts. The Boston Business Journal has more details about the move.
Windgap Medical Signs a Deal With a Top 5 Pharmaceutical Company
Windgap Medical, headquartered at Cambridge Scientific Labs, announced a new collaboration with an unnamed “Top 5” pharmaceutical company to develop drug delivery methods for up to three drug candidates. Windgap specializes in developing injectable drug delivery devices for therapies with complex formulations. This specific collaboratoin will focus on their Multimix platform, which automatically mixes and inject compounds for the patient. They also have platforms for sequential injection of compounds and automatic resuspension of a lyophilized (freeze-dried) compound. The estimated value of the deal was not disclosed. This news comes on the heels of a January VC funding round extension of $10.3 million, according to SEC filings.
Watertown’s 2026 Q1 Funding Numbers
With Q1 2026 in the books, we can tally the funds raised by Watertown Biotechs. In Q1, 6 firms announced fundraising rounds for a disclosed total raise of $161 million (one firm declined to disclose the valuation of their raise). The funding rounds are detailed in the table below. Funding was led by Diagonal Therapeutics $125 million Series B raise for the clustering antibody DIAG723 in development to treat Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiecstasia.
For Context, from Mass Bio Industry snapshots, the 2026 Q1 raise exceeds the $22 million raised in Q1 and Q2 of 2025, and is on par with the VC funds raised in Q1 and Q2 in 2022 and 2023, as summarized in the chart below. Its possible if funding trends continue for 2026 to have the second highest fundraising year on record, behind only 2024. Of course, first half fundraising numbers are only half the story as companies brought in an addition $500 million+ during the latter of 2025.
Data from Pitchbook as reported in Mass Bio Industry Snapshots. Values are Q1 & Q2 combined, except for 2026, which is only Q1.
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Quick Hits
Community
In honor of Earth Day, Tectonic Therapeutics cleaned up Arsenal Park and Seismic Therapeutic planted wildflowers in the pocket park on Walnut Street.
Design
Addgene rebranded! check out there new logo.
Arrivals
The first phase of Labshares opened in Watertown at 66 Galen Street.
People
Lifemine Therapeutics, announced the appointments of Yves Zinggeler as Chief Commercial Officer, Christine Ward as SVP Immunology Research & Translational Development, Jay Guatam as SVP of Technical Operations, and Nitender Goyal as VP Clinical Development, Transplantation.
Tectonic Therapeutic appointed Jessica Chutter to their board of directors.
Thats all the news for now!
