The Board of Supervisors took a first step Tuesday toward planning for a 250,000-square-foot biotech medical research park on the campus of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the South Bay.
“This will lay the groundwork to begin making Los Angeles a hub of biotech innovation,” Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said.
Ridley-Thomas said he envisioned a 15-acre park next to the LA BioMedical Research Center, where a nonprofit scientific research organization is focused on developing new medical procedures, devices and drugs. He said he expected it to be built at a cost of $110-125 million in a public-private partnership that would create 800-900 jobs.
Citing a 2014 study of the bioscience industry by Battelle, Ridley- Thomas said research pioneered locally typically moves out of Los Angeles County due to “a lack of funding, facilities and support for new startups and early stage companies.”
At a biotech summit in February, USC President C.L. Max Nikias told a gathering of policymakers and business leaders that Los Angeles ranks 14th in the nation in biotech investment. San Francisco leads the nation, with more than $1 billion invested in 2014, while Los Angeles pulled in only $45 million, according to the university president.
“What makes this puzzling is that Los Angeles universities produce over 5,000 graduates in the sciences, engineering and technology — more than San Francisco and San Diego combined,” Nikias said at the time. “We simply can no longer afford this massive brain drain from L.A. County.”
In November, the board directed the Community Development Commission to put together a task force to look at creating bioscience hubs throughout the county.
The board’s vote today approves spending up to $105,000 to include a biotech campus in an environmental review of Harbor-UCLA’s master plan.
Harbor-UCLA is a teaching hospital in Carson, and is a major trauma center and receiving hospital for the entire southern end of Los Angeles County.
— City News Service
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