After one year of operation the City of Carlsbad's life science incubator, Bio, Tech and Beyond, has shown success by helping to launch six life sciences startups that could grow into fully fledged companies.
The Carlsbad City Council agreed last January to lease a city-owned building where the operators of Bio, Tech and Beyond could build a space where scientific ideas could grow.
As home to more than 120 life sciences firms, including such industry giants as Isis Pharmaceuticals, Genoptix and Thermo Fisher Scientific, the City of Carlsbad decided it made sense to nurture nascent firms. The city's life sciences cluster holds more than 600 patents and provides 7,000 well-paying jobs, making it a powerful economic engine.
Bio, Tech and Beyond's founders, Joseph Jackson and Kevin Lustig, spent their first six months converting the former auto-insurance claims building at 2351 Faraday Ave. into a workable laboratory. They held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last July that was attended by more than 400 people, and three weeks later they were renting benches to scientists.
Jackson and Lustig said that as the new year dawned they have five full-time members who are operating six companies, which have the equivalent of 14 full-time employees. The members are often industry veterans who have been nurturing an idea, and who need a place where they can develop it.
"There's been a tremendous amount that's happened in our first year," Jackson said recently. "The building has gone from an unused entity to an ongoing hub of economic activity where people are generating businesses, showing there's really a need for something like this."
The city is leasing the 6,000-square-foot building to the lab for $1 a year for five years. Bio, Tech and Beyond's managers paid for most of the tenant improvements and furnished the lab with scientific and other equipment, some of which was donated by local life sciences companies.
The lab continues to develop a revenue stream from membership fees, corporate sponsorships, donations, event fees, course fees and grants. The facility also houses a cell culture lab that it can use to generate revenue and help make it self-sustaining. It is already contributing to the North San Diego County economy by purchasing goods and services from a variety of local firms.
The ultimate measure of the Bio, Tech and Beyond's success will be whether it helps members graduate into the ranks of self-sustaining, job-creating companies on the strength of a new product or technology.
One of the companies housed at Bio, Tech and Beyond, Orphi Therapeutics, is a candidate to make such a transition. Its founders are researching a therapy that would treat a blood disorder, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, that causes strokes. The scientists are researching a genetic form of the disease that affects the young, and they hope to begin testing a drug therapy within two years.
This is the exact idea that the City of Carlsbad had when it embraced the concept for a life sciences incubator, and the city believes it makes sense to help Bio, Tech and Beyond help others to achieve great things for our future.
The Carlsbad City Council agreed last January to lease a city-owned building where the operators of Bio, Tech and Beyond could build a space where scientific ideas could grow.
As home to more than 120 life sciences firms, including such industry giants as Isis Pharmaceuticals, Genoptix and Thermo Fisher Scientific, the City of Carlsbad decided it made sense to nurture nascent firms. The city's life sciences cluster holds more than 600 patents and provides 7,000 well-paying jobs, making it a powerful economic engine.
Bio, Tech and Beyond's founders, Joseph Jackson and Kevin Lustig, spent their first six months converting the former auto-insurance claims building at 2351 Faraday Ave. into a workable laboratory. They held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last July that was attended by more than 400 people, and three weeks later they were renting benches to scientists.
Jackson and Lustig said that as the new year dawned they have five full-time members who are operating six companies, which have the equivalent of 14 full-time employees. The members are often industry veterans who have been nurturing an idea, and who need a place where they can develop it.
"There's been a tremendous amount that's happened in our first year," Jackson said recently. "The building has gone from an unused entity to an ongoing hub of economic activity where people are generating businesses, showing there's really a need for something like this."
The city is leasing the 6,000-square-foot building to the lab for $1 a year for five years. Bio, Tech and Beyond's managers paid for most of the tenant improvements and furnished the lab with scientific and other equipment, some of which was donated by local life sciences companies.
The lab continues to develop a revenue stream from membership fees, corporate sponsorships, donations, event fees, course fees and grants. The facility also houses a cell culture lab that it can use to generate revenue and help make it self-sustaining. It is already contributing to the North San Diego County economy by purchasing goods and services from a variety of local firms.
The ultimate measure of the Bio, Tech and Beyond's success will be whether it helps members graduate into the ranks of self-sustaining, job-creating companies on the strength of a new product or technology.
One of the companies housed at Bio, Tech and Beyond, Orphi Therapeutics, is a candidate to make such a transition. Its founders are researching a therapy that would treat a blood disorder, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, that causes strokes. The scientists are researching a genetic form of the disease that affects the young, and they hope to begin testing a drug therapy within two years.
This is the exact idea that the City of Carlsbad had when it embraced the concept for a life sciences incubator, and the city believes it makes sense to help Bio, Tech and Beyond help others to achieve great things for our future.