CBRE Group

Through 2019, CBRE's Advisory Services division generated approximately $6 billion in revenue primarily through generalist commercial real estate brokerage — office leasing, industrial transactions, and capital markets advisory served by geographic-market brokers. The healthcare and life sciences vertical was underserved, with no dedicated national practice and only ad-hoc coverage from local market teams. Healthcare real estate ($1.2 trillion market) and life sciences ($50 billion lab/R&D space market) were growing sectors where CBRE had limited client penetration, estimated at approximately 3-4% market share versus 15%+ in traditional office.

Starting in 2020, CBRE launched a dedicated healthcare and life sciences vertical GTM strategy:

• National practice formation: Created a dedicated Healthcare & Life Sciences practice with specialized professionals — healthcare real estate advisors, lab space consultants, and life sciences capital markets specialists — distinct from the generalist brokerage teams.
• Sector-specific marketing and thought leadership: Published proprietary life sciences research (lab market reports, biotech real estate trends) to establish credibility with healthcare systems, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech firms that had not previously engaged CBRE.
• Healthcare capital markets team: Built the largest healthcare capital markets team in commercial real estate, completing more healthcare capital markets transactions than any other brokerage firm, according to CBRE's investor materials.
• Cross-platform solution: Combined Advisory Services with Facilities Management — a unique capability among CRE brokerages — to offer healthcare clients integrated real estate advisory plus facility operations, a bundled solution generalist brokers could not provide.

• Healthcare market leadership: CBRE became the #1 healthcare real estate advisory firm by transaction volume, handling more healthcare capital markets transactions than any competitor.
• Life sciences growth: Life sciences advisory revenue grew significantly as the biotech real estate boom (2020-2023) created demand for specialized lab space advisory that CBRE was positioned to capture.
• New client acquisition: The healthcare practice brought hundreds of new healthcare system and life sciences clients into CBRE's client base — organizations that had previously used specialized healthcare brokerages or handled real estate in-house.
• Revenue diversification: Healthcare, life sciences, data center, and technology verticals collectively grew faster than traditional office, helping CBRE weather the post-COVID office downturn. Total 2023 revenue reached $31.0 billion.
• Cross-sell: Healthcare advisory clients subsequently purchased CBRE facilities management, property management, and project management services — the average healthcare client engaged 2.3 CBRE service lines versus 1.4 for generalist office clients.
• Timeframe: 2020-2023 (ongoing vertical buildout).

• CBRE's existing facilities management platform (Turner & Townsend, Global Workplace Solutions) provided a cross-sell opportunity that pure brokerage competitors lacked
• COVID-19 accelerated healthcare real estate activity (hospital expansions, lab buildouts for vaccine development), creating a demand tailwind
• CBRE's global scale and brand credibility enabled it to recruit specialized healthcare real estate professionals from smaller niche firms
• Proprietary research and data capabilities gave the healthcare practice unique market intelligence to share with prospective clients