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San Diego Resources

Within the last decade, the San Diego region has exploded as a major international center for science and technology. Driven by the academic research engine, consisting of TSRI, University of California, San Diego, Sanford-Burnham Institute and The Salk Institute, the community is home to one of the most highly concentrated and diverse clusters of life sciences companies in the world. A broad array of bioscience technologies exists among the nearly 250 biotechnology companies and 160 medical device companies, including gene therapy, diagnostics, cryogenics, genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, agri-biotech and pharmaceuticals.

According to the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation, San Diego boasts the highest number of Ph.D.s in residence as well as the highest number of science-based Nobel laureates in the world. In addition, its institutions receive the highest number of NIH grants per capita in the nation, with a total of nearly $700 million in research funding. The community has been identified as the third largest concentration of biotechnology companies in the country, behind San Francisco and Boston. Ernst & Young has identified it as the fastest-growing biotech region in the country in the first half of 2001. This fact is certainly confirmed just by driving around Torrey Pines Mesa, La Jolla and Sorrento Mesa, areas within a few miles of TSRI and the heart of the life sciences industry in San Diego.

San Diego produces 9% of all sales and drug revenue in the U.S. with product sales of $866 million and total revenue of $1.5 billion. Within the last several years, the life sciences community has become home to many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson&Johnson, Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd.. The region’s life sciences sector is a growing part of the overall economy and all predictions indicate a robust future in San Diego’s technology-driven economy. Employment in the biosciences reached 32,000 in 2001 and according to a report conducted by the San Diego Workforce Partnership, employment among nearly 75% of biotechnology companies surveyed will grow by 45% by the end of 2002.

All of this activity has attracted institutional investment capital both from venture capitalists who poured $1.5 billion into San Diego biopharmaceutical companies from 1995-2001, according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution. And in another measure of innovation and creativity, San Diego ranked higher than any other part of the country for the rate of patents filed in chemistry, molecular biology and microbiology between 1994 and 1998, according to an early Brookings report.

A spirit of excitement and optimism pervades the area, and creates an environment conducive to collaboration and synergy. The biosciences are a formidable force in San Diego, and TSRI is at the center of the community, continuing to make a substantial contribution to the effort and assuming a leadership role in the future growth of the life sciences sector.