Thursday, September 22, 2011
Two Biotech Labs Set Up Shop In San Diego
In a demonstration of the amount of activity in San Diego's biotech industry, two, separate companies announced new biotech laboratories opened up in San Diego Wednesday. Both Isis Pharmaceuticals and the J. Craig Venter Institute said they are opening up new R&D facilities in San Diego Wednesday. Isis Pharmaceuticals said that it has completed a new, 176,000 square foot building in Carlsbad, which will serve as a consolidated R&D facility for the company. Isis said the building, built along with BioMed Realty Trust, will consolidate the majority of its operations into a single facility for drug discovery and development. The new facility is expected to qualify for Silver LEED certification.
Separately, the J. Craig Venter Institute held a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday for a new, 45,000 square foot laboratory facility, for its genomics research. The J. Craig Venter Institute said the new building is expected to be complete in 2013, and will support 125 scientists and staff. The new building is on the campus of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and will be LEED Platinum certified. The institute's new lab is a combinatoin of wet laboratory and computational laboratory.