The $10 billion bright spot in the battered world of office real estate

Even as the remote-work era clouds the future for offices, one segment of the business is drawing cash from investors including Blackstone Group Inc. and KKR & Co.

More than $10 billion has gone toward buying buildings used for life sciences and other research this year, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc. That accounted for approximately 4% of all global commercial real estate transactions through May, double the share from last year.

That estimate doesn't count new construction, and fresh buildings are breaking ground in U.S. cities including Boston, San Diego and San Francisco -- many without having signed major tenants. Unlike workers in conventional offices, many scientists don't work remotely. And as vaccines help fuel the economic rebound, funding for medical innovations is expected to drive the need for more space, particularly in the U.S. and U.K.

"The pandemic only amplified the demand growth, but it's a trend we think will continue for years," Nadeem Meghji, Blackstone's head of real estate Americas, said in an interview. "This is about, broadly, advances in drug discovery, advances in biology and a greater need given an aging population."

Last year, as social-distancing emptied out office buildings and damped investor interest in malls and hotels, life science building sales and refinancing totaled about $25 billion, up from roughly $9 billion in 2019, according to Eastdil Secured. Blackstone, a veteran investor in the sector, booked a $6.5 billion profit from refinancing BioMed Realty Trust, the largest private owner of life-science office buildings in the U.S. It also agreed in December to buy a portfolio of lab buildings for $3.4 billion.

KKR paid about $1.1 billion in March for a San Francisco office complex it plans to repurpose for life science tenants. Dropbox Inc. had rented the entire...