A little more detail in today's Chronicle, including a photo of the rendering. Unfortunately, this center was poached from SSF, so it's not an addition to the region. But it is a nice move forward for the success of Mission Bay.
Quote:
Pfizer moving new biotech research unit to S.F.
Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
(08-05) 19:45 PDT -- San Francisco's drive to become a major hub of the biotechnology industry got a big boost Tuesday when Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, said it will move the headquarters of its new biotech research unit to Mission Bay, next door to UCSF's new campus.
The department's move from South San Francisco is a "significant win," said Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has campaigned for years to attract biomedical companies to the city, where the biotech industry's scientific foundation was built more than 30 years ago with early gene-splicing experiments at UCSF.
The city has not yet estimated how much property tax or other revenue could flow directly from Pfizer's presence, officials said. But a greater impact of the move could be to increase interest in Mission Bay among other biomedical companies, said Kelley Kahn of the city's redevelopment agency. "It just really solidifies this biotech cluster we're trying to create," she said.
Pfizer, like most other huge pharmaceutical companies, has been scouting for promising new therapies by forming alliances with university researchers and biotech companies. And like other big drugmakers, Pfizer faces looming patent expiration dates for mainstay products such as Lipitor that contribute billions to its revenues. Pfizer formed its Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center last year, tapping Bay Area biotech veteran Corey Goodman to lead it.
Goodman's mission is to acquire or partner with biotech companies while allowing them to maintain the entrepreneurial culture that can lead to rapid breakthroughs in medical treatment. The move to Mission Bay, Goodman said, will place Pfizer a few steps from UCSF labs and its planned cancer hospital, making it easy for the company to carry out research collaborations, recruit top scientific talent and evaluate scientific advances.
"Every interest is aligned for us to take those innovative discoveries from basic biomedical research, turn them into therapeutics, test them in the clinic, and ultimately take them to the market to help patients," Goodman said. Pfizer had already inked a $9.5 million research collaboration deal in June with UCSF and its unit at QB3, the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, which is based at Mission Bay.
Pfizer's biotech research unit will lease a five-story building under construction next to the new UCSF campus, where a cluster of biomedical companies is sprouting.
Fulfilling the city's vision
The pioneering medical researchers at UCSF have always been a draw for biotech companies looking for new technologies to commercialize. However, in the early years of the industry they sought cheaper, roomier quarters available in outlying towns such as South San Francisco. But UCSF's second campus at Mission Bay is surrounded by vast tracts of open land, and city officials from former Mayor Willie Brown to Newsom have envisioned the university as a siren song for well-heeled biomedical companies that could bring jobs and tax revenues to the city.
"San Francisco offers companies like Pfizer a world-class urban innovation district, anchored by the nation's pre-eminent biomedical university, and unparalleled opportunities for collaboration and access to the very best talent that the United States and the world have to offer," Newsom said.
The gradual arrival of life sciences companies is starting to fulfill the vision of city officials. Redevelopment plans for Mission Bay include 6 million square feet of commercial space for biotech companies. At this point, 3 million square feet have been built, are under construction, or have city-approved plans, said Kahn of the redevelopment agency. With other land claimed for the UCSF cancer center, that leaves 1.7 million square feet still available for expansion.
QB3 director Regis Kelly said Pfizer's move will help create a thicket of personal ties between UCSF and the company, catalyzing research. "There is a huge advantage of the physical proximity of academic scientists and industry scientists," he said.
Pfizer expects to move 100 staffers into 100,500 square feet in the building at 455 Mission Bay Blvd. South by early 2010. That will include employees of antibody therapy developer Rinat, a South San Francisco biotechnology company bought by Pfizer in 2006. The Pfizer bioinnovation center has a 15-year lease with an option to rent half of an adjoining building the same size.
Room to expand
The Pfizer unit will be among the larger private biomedical companies at Mission Bay, which include Sirna Therapeutics Inc., a biotech company acquired by Merck & Co. in 2006; and FibroGen Inc., which will move from South San Francisco in November.
Although Pfizer has room to expand at Mission Bay, it doesn't intend to develop a huge campus of its own, Goodman said. The bioinnovation center is a hub that unites Pfizer collaborators in the Bay Area, Boston and San Diego. The company's base at Mission Bay will help its far-flung research partners form relationships with UCSF scientists, Goodman said.
But the bioinnovation center remains an "independent, entrepreneurial division of Pfizer," Goodman said. "We're never going to grow super-big," he said. "That's what we're trying to avoid."
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