December 13, 2007

The Scientist ran a short, but very interesting article on the growth of the biotech industry in San Diego, a development that can apparently be traced back to a single researcher at UCSD who went on to found the company Hybritech. (Note: Free registration is required to read the article)

In 1978, Ivor Royston, then a young assistant professor studying immunology at University of California, San Diego, drove four investors to the airport. He had given them a tour of his lab, shown them how he made monoclonal antibodies, and told them he believed these new tools could be the future of disease diagnosis.

When the investors asked him how much it would cost for him and his technician, Howard Birndorf (now CEO of Nanogen) to start a small, independent laboratory and make antibodies for commercially interesting purposes such as hepatitis testing, Royston had no idea. He asked for $200,000.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Paul Howard at December 13, 2007 03:28 PM

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