HemaCare to Relocate to Larger HQ

HemaCare Corp. in Van Nuys plans to relocate its headquarters to Northridge to make room for growth, the company announced. The provider of human blood and immune cells for cell therapy signed this month an 11-year lease for nearly 40,000 square feet at “The Mix” at Harman Campus at 8500 Balboa Blvd. HemaCare said it is currently designing its new space and expects to start construction before the end of the year. It plans to move in next summer. The biotech company said the space will be two and a half times larger than its current space to accommodate its 43 percent growth in sales in 2016 and anticipated continued demand this year. “HemaCare is designing the buildout of our new global corporate headquarters to optimize process flow, utilize flexible production environments to serve our customers’ increasingly complex requirements and provide sufficient scalability to support the increasing demand of our global customer base,” said Pete Van der Wal, chief executive. “Given HemaCare’s continued rapid growth, it is important that HemaCare continues to build capacity to keep up with our customers’ needs for advanced vertically-integrated solutions.” The Van Nuys biotech specializes in isolating and providing blood cells and tissues, bone marrow and other human-derived materials to customers for biomedical research. Van der Wal said the increase in advanced biomedical research, cellular therapies and regenerative medicine has helped spur profitability. The industrial, office and eventually retail campus is owned by DRA Advisors and Shubin – Nadal Realty Investors, which bought it in 2014 when it was called the Harman International Business Campus. Ron Wade and Bennett Robinson with CBRE Group Inc. arranged the lease for the deal.