Biotechnology

WHERE INDUSTRIES ARE BORN

As the birthplace of biotech, San Francisco offers biotechnology and life science companies unparalleled opportunities for collaboration, innovation and discovery. Located in the heart of the largest and most respected biotech community in the world, the San Francisco Bay Area is home to four world-class research universities and supports a life-science workforce of 90,000 who work at more than 1,300 biotech companies. More than any other city in the world, San Francisco is deeply committed to actively recruiting, supporting and retaining biotechnology companies. To support the expansion of the industry in San Francisco, the City offers a payroll tax exemption to local businesses engaged in biotechnology activities.

But what makes San Francisco unique among its peers is that it is is not only home to many of the world's premiere biomedical researchers and scientists—it offers unequaled access to the people behind biotech: the venture capitalists, the legal experts, and the scholars who are leading life science development for the world. Many of these leaders are members of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Biotechnology Advisory Council (MayBAC). MayBAC is a thriving partnership between the private and public sectors that focuses on the growth and development of the biotechnology industry in San Francisco.

The Mission Bay Biotech Cluster. San Francisco’s cutting-edge Mission Bay was designed to be the world’s most competitive biotech cluster, bringing together an unmatched combination of talent, research, capital, and industry. As the premier destination for innovation, collaboration and commercialization of life science discoveries, the Mission Bay cluster is anchored by the 43-acre Mission Bay campus of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), the world's preeminent biomedical university; QB3, a cooperative effort among three campuses of the University of California and private industry; the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the newly formed $3 billion state agency dedicated to funding stem cell research; a state-of-the-art hospital that will serve women, children and cancer patients; the Gladstone Institute; and numerous cutting-edge biotech companies—Merck, Fibrogen, FivePrime Therapeutics, Prosetta and Pharmion, among others.