California has one of the worst state budget shortfalls in the country, some godawful transportation bottlenecks, and housing prices that are high enough to send most newly minted PhD’s into talk therapy. And despite all that, in 20 years’ time, San Francisco will still be the world’s No. 1 place for creating innovative new drugs, diagnostics, and medical devices.
That was the gist of what we heard on Wednesday night from the all-star panel we pulled together for “Bay Area Life Sciences 2031” at Genentech Hall on UCSF’s Mission Bay campus. Corey Goodman of venBio, Peter Hirth of Plexxikon, Jeff Bluestone of UCSF, and Randy Scott of Genomic Health offered up their insights on where they see the industry headed over the long term, and how the Bay Area will play a key role in the global picture. We also heard brief talks from a quartet of Bay Area entrepreneurs—Nancy Stagliano, Mickey Urdea, Bill Newell, and Dave Martin—who are working on projects that could have an impact on healthcare two decades out.
My colleague Wade Roush snapped a bunch of photos to give you some sense of what our first life sciences event in San Francisco was like. About 150 people turned out for the conversation, and all sorts of high-powered networking that came before and after.
Before going to the photos, I’d like to thank a few of the organizations that helped us make this event such a big hit. Special kudos go out to QB3 as the event host, for helping with all kinds of details behind the scenes, as well as to director Reg Kelly, who quipped in his opening remarks that he certainly plans to still be around in another 20 years (he’s over 70). We’d also like to thank the event sponsors—Aderly Only Lyon, AMRI, Fenwick & West, Halloran Consulting Group, and Latham & Watkins. We also would like to thank our underwriters, who provide Xconomy San Francisco with ongoing support. They are: Alexandria Real Estate Equities, AMRI, Fenwick & West, Goodwin Proctor, Invest Northern Ireland, Halloran Consulting Group, J. Robert Scott Executive Search, the Kauffman Foundation, Latham & Watkins, Morrison Foerster Cleantech Group, Schwartz Communications, SRI International, and the Science & Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And, we’d also like to thank event partner BayBio, and Mixtur, our design partner.
As usual, you can click on one of the thumbnail images below if you’d like to see a larger image.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
