San Diego’s Biocom industry group announced Monday the latest development in its steady northward expansion.
Biocom, which promotes and lobbies on behalf of life science companies, said it has opened a new office in the San Francisco Bay Area and formed an advisory board of local executives.
The association, which represents more than 1,000 companies and organizations in the industry, primarily in California, said it has 275 members in the Bay Area, a total that it said is “steadily increasing.” The new office is in the Genesis Tower in South San Francisco.
The members of the advisory board are J&J Innovation vice president of venture investments
Marianne De Backer; Caribou Biosciences president and CEO Rachel Haurwitz; Explora Biolabs
founder and head of growth and strategy Richard Lin; Antiva Biosciences president and CEO Gail Maderis; Jones Day partner Janet McNicholas; Fibrogen director of community affairs and real estate Catherine Sharpe; and Biomedical Manufacturing Network director Gregory Theyel.
Joe Panetta, Biocom’s president and CEO, is also a member of the new Bay Area board.
The announcement comes less than six months after another biotech advocacy group, California Life Sciences Association, announced it would open an expanded office and events center in San Francisco.
The openings and expansions recall a similar period of geographic growth for the groups in 2016. That year Biocom debuted a new office in Los Angeles in spring; later in the year CLSA opened an office there, too.
CLSA was formed in 2015 from the merger of the California Healthcare Institute (CHI) and the Bay Area Bioscience Association (BayBio). Biocom was founded in 1995.
In addition to offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area, Biocom also has satellite offices in Washington, DC, and Tokyo, and a “continuous staff presence” in Sacramento. CSLA, which also has offices in those three California regions, has operations in Washington, DC, and Sacramento as well.
