The Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative (PBC), a program of the CCCEWD's California Applied Biotech Initiative, invites life science entrepreneurs in Southern California to consider their Incubator as a possible new home for start-up businesses. The Incubator has been in existence for six years and its Board of Directors includes civic, educational and scientific leadership. As a nonprofit organization, the PBC has access to donated equipment and is able to provide early start-up companies with high quality facilities and equipment at a low cost. With over 10,000 sq. ft. of office and lab space, it currently houses eleven companies and provides a variety of resources to its tenants including a shared-use WetLab and professional support from experts in scientific, business and legal areas. Tenants also benefit from a membership in the Southern California Biomedical Council.
The PBC incubator's shared-use WetLab consists of hoods, incubators, autoclave, freezers, coolers, ice machine, DI water, chemical storage, tissue culture facility and standard laboratory bench-top equipment. Trained interns are available to tenants from the Biology Technology Program at Pasadena City College, as well as from California State University, Los Angeles and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Internship training sessions are hosted by the WetLab one Saturday each month.
Most PBC companies typically start with two-three employees, but expand over time. The PBC has successfully grown and graduated six companies to date. Currently, one tenant and two graduate companies employ 14 to 20 individuals.
The Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project (QTDP), devised to reinvest monies spent by companies with fewer than 250 employees, has enabled PBC's start-up companies to receive grants totaling more than $3.6 million-current tenants received ten grants of over $1.1M and graduate companies received twenty-seven grants of approximately $2.5 M. These grants have been instrumental in allowing PBC tenants to hire additional employees and undertake additional patent filings. One of the graduate companies now has a product that is undergoing human clinical trials.
For more information about PBC's Incubator go to www.pasadenabiosci.org. To learn more about the CCCEWD's California Applied Biotechnology Centers, go to www.cccbiotech.org or contact Jeff O'Neal at (916) 484-8052 or onealj@cccewd.net.
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