11.12 SD 08 Movers NR

San Diegoi In search of the élite A huge number of people have contributed to the success of San Diego. Virginia Gewin catches up with a selection of the region’s prime movers. he rise of San Diego has aspect of the job. I wanted to Bob Conn therapy, and the characterization been remarkable. In just create an environment where we Partner at the venture- of a mechanism of action that T30 years, it has secured would not be bothered by capital firm Enterprise revealed how hormones and drugs itself a prime position in the bureaucracy and other Partners, former dean control wide aspects of body world of biotech and high-tech considerations that made it hard of the Jacobs School physiology and disease. innovation. But who helped to to do research. of Engineering at the University of BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO FORMING shape this vision? Who ensured BIGGEST ANNOYANCE Losing California, San Diego. LIGAND Raising money. Big that the region did not buckle business to a competitor. MOTTO You shouldn’t do anything pharmaceutical companies weren’t under the pressures of recession? BEST PART OF JOB Solving for more than a decade. interested in new technology There are many names on this extremely complex problems that HOBBIES Contemporary art is a primarily because they didn’t roll of honour — those who ultimately benefit the country. passionate interest. It goes back to understand how it could be used. facilitated San Diego’s my early days when friends were DRIVING FORCE Helping to cure rejuvenation, those whose Howard artists and I was a nerd. disease. Taking a discovery from entrepreneurial vision has laid the Birndorf PIVOTAL MOMENT OF CAREER The the lab bench, through a company foundations for the region’s Chief executive of moments of change. I made some and into the clinic is amazing. meteoric rise, and those upon Nanogen, founding major changes in my career: I left NEXT BIG THING IN BIOTECH whom the area’s future prosperity partner of Hybritech the University of Wisconsin to go The next era will be the will depend. Nature canvassed and IDEC Pharmaceuticals. to the University of California, Los commercialization of the human dozens of San Diego insiders to SAN DIEGO AND HYBRITECH I have Angeles, then on to its San Diego genome, the integration of new find out who they believed to be to believe that in time there campus. Finally I joined concepts that will explore large the élite. Among the 270 responses, would have been another biotech Enterprise Partners. numbers of proteins as potential several names cropped up again happening here because there were RECENT TRENDS As I get older I therapeutic targets. and again. Although by no means so many talented individuals. But it take more risks. HOPE FOR CHANGE Some an exhaustive list, here, in no order was a magical place — everybody STATE OF HIGH-TECH IN SAN understanding by the Food and of merit, are those who were was committed and worked hard DIEGO We’re without peer in the Drug Administration that every mentioned most often. with a sense of excellence and wireless area. It is the Silicon single drug should not cost $900 urgency to get the job done. Valley of wireless. I don’t want to million to create and test. Such a Bob Beyster GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT sound like a city booster, but I burden means that only big Chief executive of With Hybritech it was the prostate suppose I am. I think that the companies can afford to bring Science Applications cancer test, which has saved foundation that has been laid for drugs to the market-place. International countless lives. I think the other San Diego’s economy in the past SURPRISING FACT I like fast cars. Corporation (SAIC). great success was Rituxan, an two decades has put the city in an BEST PART OF JOB Blue sky-ing GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT antibody treatment that attacks extraordinary position for the with colleagues about big Founding SAIC in 1969; and 34 cancer cells, from IDEC. next ten years. questions in biology. years of increased revenues and ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SAN DIEGO consistent growth for our It needs to be a good idea and Ron Evans Wain Fishburn employee owners — the company have commercial merit, but you Professor of molecular Partner with law firm has never had a downturn year. can get it done here easier than biology at the Salk Cooley Godward, MOTTO Those who contribute to anywhere else in the world. Institute and a Howard founding member the company should own it. PIVOTAL MOMENT IN YOUR CAREER Hughes investigator. of BIOCOM and TODAY’S TELECOM INDUSTRY It Meeting venture capitalist Brook Founder of several companies UCSD CONNECT. SCHOENHERR MARCUS has been experiencing a downturn Byers and working with him for 25 including Ligand Pharmaceuticals, GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT Realizing for the past couple years. We are years. He’s an amazing business- Xceptor Therapeutics and in the late 1980s that the life- optimistic that there will be a man and incredible mentor — one Xenopharm. science and technology industries turnaround soon. of the brightest people I know. GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT The were likely to be the key factors for SURPRISING FACT When I started IMPACT OF NANOTECH ON discovery of a large family of San Diego’s future — even though SAIC in 1969, I was never very BIOTECH Miniaturization is king; hormone receptors that are at the time every one else thought much concerned about the money it will open entirely new markets. potential targets for cancer I was crazy. NATURE | VOL 426 | 11 DECEMBER 2003 | www.nature.com/nature © 2003 Nature Publishing Group 713 San Diego PIVOTAL CAREER MOMENT When David Hale goes to the private sector with GREATEST BUSINESS FAILURE Our San Diego matured as a life- Chief executive of ideas to bridge the gap between delay in entering key markets in science and technology venture CancerVax and a discovery and the private sector. Asia and Europe. community and the major law founding member of The roadblock in the ‘translational CURRENT STATE OF THE TELECOM firms saw fit to open offices here. Hybritech, BIOCOM highway’ of moving ideas to the INDUSTRY I think that it is slowly As a lawyer, I had always had to and UCSD CONNECT. market-place is when an idea gets recovering, led by strong growth fight to demonstrate that what HOW SAN DIEGO HAS CHANGED stuck at the point when its in CDMA communications, was happening in San Diego was When I first came here, most funding from the National powerful and attractive devices, important. people had no idea what Institutes of Health has ended, but and a rapidly expanding range of BEST THING ABOUT SAN DIEGO It biotechnology was, what its it has yet to secure pre-seed applications. has outgrown its caricature as a capabilities might be or knew money for a start-up. A lot of BEST AND WORST OF SAN DIEGO place with great sun and airheaded anything about science or industry. really good ideas are too early for There are continuing surfers. Over the past 20 years we I remember organizing a day with venture capitalists to pick up and improvements in the cultural and have become a Mecca for the best the city council where a number of need to be matured. We want to intellectual climate to match our and brightest in myriad tech fields. us presented what we thought the bring an idea closer to the clinic so physical climate — although these SURPRISING FACT I dance when no potential was for the industry and that the private sector might be are offset by the need for one is looking. they were flabbergasted. more motivated to pick it up. improvements in housing, TEN-YEAR FORECAST I’m curious Additionally, we used to have to GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT Working transportation and public as to whether we end up with a hire every employee from with faculty members and education. meaningful number of standalone somewhere else. There wasn’t leadership to develop a vision for SURPRISING FACT I had difficulty companies or go in our present anybody here that knew anything. institutions that capitalizes on at college with public speaking (I direction of supplying major PERSONAL FAILURE My greatest their strengths and matches where almost flunked) and cooking corporations with promising personal disappointment was to the forefront of science is heading. (while in the Cornell hotel companies. have Protera — a product to BEST PART OF SAN DIEGO What is school). FAVOURITE PLACE IN SAN DIEGO I reduce deaths and stroke during unique about San Diego’s love meeting entrepreneurs in the coronary bypass surgery — fail academic excellence is a Robert Kibble evening for a glass of wine on the in the final stage of clinical trials constellation of things — a group Managing partner at balcony of La Valencia hotel. at Gensia. of institutions such as Salk, Mission Ventures and MARK ROSS BIOTECH INDUSTRY FAILURE The Burnham, Scripps layered on top early-stage investor in Itzhak Gurantz industry as a whole has failed to of a robust biotech industry. over 30 high-tech Chief executive of grow independent biotech BEST PART OF JOB Bringing companies in California. Entropic companies in San Diego. creativity and so making it easier GREATEST BUSINESS FAILURE It’s Communications, and FUTURE OF BIOTECH I think over for faculty members to do their difficult to choose between them. instrumental in the the next several years, we’ll have research. The most recent one was the development of Direct TV. companies that can sustain growth Internet company Ihome — MENTOR Andy Viterbi, co-founder and development in San Diego.

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