BioVex, which also has offices in the UK, occupied a small office suite in Cambridge while searching for space for its world headquarters, which it will fully occupy next year, Michael Brown with the Trammell Crow Company's Boston office tells GlobeSt.com.

"It was a huge win for Massachusetts to get this tenant," says Brown, noting that the firm also considered Canada and several other US locations before deciding on the Woburn site.

Helping to seal the deal was a $2.5 million Emerging Technology Fund loan awarded by MassDevelopment that allows the firm to capitalize on the Bay State's world-class life sciences cluster and highly-skilled workforce.

That loan, along with a building infrastructure that allowed the firm to reduce its costs and start up time, helped solidify the state's selection as the firm's new international headquarters, says Brown. BioVex will share the property with Calloway Laboratories.

Terms of BioVex's lease on the two-story, 60,000 sf building were not disclosed. Class A office space in the Woburn market generally rents for between $20 and $20.50 per sf while R&D space leases for between $8 and $9 per sf, according to a second quarter report on the Route 128 north market prepared by CRESA Partners.

Brown and Ted Lyon, also with Trammell Crow, handled the transaction for the tenant. The building's landlord, Cummings Properties, of Woburn, was self-presented in the deal by John Wiseman.