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 other brokerage firm. CBRE was among the first to form a specialty practice focused on the healthcare investment sector.