Biotech execs forecast rapid growth for 101 corridor
The Highway 101 biotech hub will continue to grow rapidly in coming years, key industry stakeholders forecast at an April 24 life sciences forum in Westlake Village.
“In the last 15 years, the 101 biotech corridor has positioned itself as a vibrant life science cluster as it has addressed issues such as lack of wet lab space and difficulties in attracting VC funding,” Brent Reinke, founder and chair of the BioScience Alliance, an industry support group, told the Business Times.
“Consequently, I believe its future will be like a snowball rolling downhill and expect the cluster in our region to rapidly grow over the coming years,” he said at the third annual 101 Biotech Corridor Conference, which his nonprofit put on at the Four Seasons hotel.
The corridor, through which Highway 101 runs, includes the West San Fernando Valley and Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
The region’s Conejo Valley is already home to a sizable biotech hub anchored by life sciences giant Amgen, which was established in Thousand Oaks in 1980.
The conference’s keynote speaker was an Amgen executive, Rachna Khosla, senior vice president, business development, who also sees much growth ahead in the area.
“I for one think this is just the beginning,” not only in the 101 corridor but in the broader Southern California area as well, she said.
The San Diego region already has one of the largest biotech hubs in the country.
Khosla said that when she first considered moving from New York to Thousand Oaks to work for Amgen 12 years ago, her friends advised her to really think it through.
“They said, ‘Are you sure you want to go to Amgen? It’s a great company, but there’s nothing else in terms of biotech out here,’” Khosla recalled.
“Amgen’s pretty much the only game in town,” they told her.
Even so, Khosla replied that she really wanted to work at such an innovative, transformative company as Amgen.
Flash forward 12 years and Amgen is no longer the only game in town, she said.
Thousand Oaks’ biotech cluster is home to about 20 other life sciences firms including Atara Biotherapeutics, Capsida Biotherapeutics, Latigo Biotherapeutics and Tokyo-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
More biotech companies are located elsewhere in the Conejo Valley, including Agoura Hills-based A2 Biotherapeutics.
Life sciences venture capital firm Westlake Village BioPartners is also located in the region.
“It really speaks to me how far this whole local biotech ecosystem has come,” Khosla said.
More growth will come even faster, she said.
“I don’t think that next inflection point is another decade,” Khosla said. “I think it’s a few years.”
Camarillo, next door to Thousand Oaks and right outside the Conejo Valley, has its own, lower-profile biotech cluster.
It’s home to a dozen life sciences companies including AmerStem, Hygiena, PBS Biotech and REMD Biotherapeutics.
The conference also included panel discussions on life sciences financing and the national and international attention the region’s hub is gaining.
Ventura County Supervisor Jeff Gorell led a delegation of area biotech executives to India in Aug. 2024 to explore growth opportunities and promote the county as a prime destination for life sciences innovation.
During a Q&A period at the conference, attendee Sumant Ramachandra, an independent board member of Lyell Immunopharma, asked Khosla what it would take to build the 101 biotech corridor to the size of the nation’s largest life sciences hubs in the Boston and Bay areas.
There are four ingredients, Khosla replied.
“You need talent,” she said. “You need capital. You need academic centers. You need entrepreneurials.
“It’s not easy,” Khosla said. “But I think we’re getting there.”
Ramachandra, a physician who lives in West Hills in the 101 corridor, told the Business Times he believes the greater Los Angeles area already has those ingredients.
“The key thing is that it hasn’t taken off,” he said, noting he used to live in the Boston area, where he was a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“I want to see the same success here,” he said. “My role, as a local resident, is I want to play my part in doing it.”
During the panel discussion on M&A and financing transactions, Rajul Jain, managing partner of Vida Ventures, a life sciences investment firm with an office in Los Angeles, advised those who are seeking to raise capital “to demonstrate to investors that you’re thoughtful, that you’re hustling, that you’ll be efficient.”
Founded in 2007, the BioScience Alliance supports the industry by providing resources, building relationships through networking events such as the conference and developing connectivity among scientists, management/executives, and the investment community.
The group aims to build a life sciences “alliance” of biotech companies, education institutions and governmental agencies in the region.
Reinke, a senior shareholder at the Westlake Village office of law firm Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, told the Business Times he thought the conference went well.
He noted that attendance keeps growing at the annual event, an indicator of increasing interest in the 101 biotech corridor.
“I don’t think there are many events where you bring together senior executives from the life sciences industry in this region to connect and develop some type of relationship that could end up turning into collaborations and potential deals,” Reinke said.
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