Relay Therapeutics agrees to end Binney Street lease early and move to smaller space

The lease change

Relay Therapeutics, Inc. (RLAY) reported in a Form 8-K filed June 4, 2025 that on June 3, 2025 it signed a Third Amendment to its Binney Street lease with ARE MA Region No. 58, LLC, the landlord. The original lease, dated November 12, 2019, covers 46,631 square feet of laboratory and office space at 399 Binney Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which the company says previously served as its corporate headquarters. The term was scheduled to run until April 30, 2029.

The amendment moves the termination date to 30 days after ARE MA Region No. 59, LLC, an affiliate of the landlord, hands over certain premises to Relay under a new lease. Until that early termination date, Relay remains responsible for all rent and other obligations on Binney Street. In exchange for the amendment, Relay paid the landlord a lease modification payment of approximately $2.5 million and agreed to transfer title to certain furniture, fixtures and equipment at the property.

The new space

Relay will lease approximately 12,190 square feet of office space at Building 300, One Kendall Square, Cambridge, from an affiliate of the same landlord. The Kendall Square lease has a base term until February 28, 2030. For entering into it, Relay paid the landlord a relocation payment of approximately $3.5 million.

Relay says the combined effect of ending the Binney Street lease and taking the Kendall Square lease will reduce rent expense by approximately $16 million over the course of the lease commitments. That is the company's own figure. The 8-K does not give the annual rent on either lease, the date Relay expects to move, or the accounting charge, if any, for the payments and the equipment transfer. It also says the full text of the amendment will be filed with the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2025.

Relay also continues to lease approximately 41,474 square feet of laboratory and office space at 60 Hampshire Street in Cambridge, which it describes as its current corporate headquarters, under a lease that runs through June 30, 2032. The 8-K is filed under Items 1.01 and 1.02, and Brian Adams, the chief legal officer, signed it.

What the company says about its position

The 8-K gives no cash balance, burn rate or clinical update, so it does not show how much the lease savings matter against Relay's operating costs. The company's latest annual report on Form 10-K supplies the risks it flags. Relay says it has a limited operating history and has incurred significant operating losses since its inception, and it expects continued losses for the foreseeable future. It says it has no products approved for commercial sale and has not generated any revenue from product sales.

The annual report also says Relay will need to raise substantial additional funding, and that without it the company would be forced to delay, reduce or eliminate some product development programs or commercialization efforts. It says it has never successfully completed any large-scale, pivotal clinical trials and may be unable to do so for any product candidates it develops. It also warns that positive data from preclinical or early clinical studies are not necessarily predictive of later results, that its trials may reveal significant adverse events, and that it faces substantial competition and relies on third parties to run its trials.

Against that background, a smaller footprint and a lower rent bill are a cost-control step for a company that says it will have to find more money. The 8-K does not describe the lease change as part of any restructuring, and it does not say whether the company plans further changes to its space or its spending.

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