Joel S. Marcus, JD, CPA, is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), the urban office REIT that pioneered life science real estate from a specialty niche to a mainstream asset class and today is the preeminent and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, agtech, and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, including Greater Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Since co-founding the company in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in Series A capital and a mission to advance human health, he has led the remarkable growth of Alexandria into an S&P 500 company that, as of December 31, 2021, has a total market capitalization of $44 billion, and a total equity capitalization of $35 million that ranks it among the top 10% of all publicly traded U.S. REITs. Alexandria, which celebrates its 25th anniversary as a New York Stock Exchange listed company in May 2022, has a total shareholder return exceeding 2,500% as of December 31, 2021.
Mr. Marcus also founded and continues to lead Alexandria Venture Investments, the company’s strategic venture capital platform. Since its inception in 1996, it has strategically invested in disruptive life science, agrifoodtech, climate innovation, and technology companies advancing transformative new modalities and platforms to meaningfully improve human health. With nearly $2 billion in carrying value, Alexandria Venture Investments has been recognized by Silicon Valley Bank as the #1 most active corporate investor in biopharma by new deal volume for five consecutive years and by AgFunder as one of the five most active U.S. agtech investors for the second consecutive year.
Prior to co-founding Alexandria, Mr. Marcus had an extensive legal career specializing in corporate finance and capital markets, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions with special expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry. Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of directors of Applied Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: APLT), Frequency Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: FREQ), Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITCI), and MeiraGTx Holdings plc (NASDAQ: MGTX). He received his undergraduate and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
