Bayer HealthCare to share lab space with start-ups
Will offer lab space to be called CoLaborator at its US Innovation Center
A year after opening its US Innovation Center, Bayer HealthCare is opening the CoLaborator, a 550m2 shared lab for start-up life science companies whose technologies, drug targets or drug candidates align with Bayer’s portfolio.
Bayer Healthcare plans to open the CoLaborator by late summer in Mission Bay, California, US. It is expected to house three to four small companies.
‘The CoLaborator is a natural extension of our unique approach to research partnerships where we recognise that innovation is a collaborative process and focus on sharing risks and rewards – stepping beyond the confines of a traditional life science incubator,’ said Andreas Busch, member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee and Head of Global Drug Discovery.
According to the California Biomedical Industry 2011 report from BayBio and the California Healthcare Institute, researchers at the University of California (UC) produce, on average, four new inventions a day, and UC develops more patents than any other university in the US. This high level of research productivity has resulted in 461 start-ups since 1976.
‘Mission Bay is becoming well known as a thriving zone for bioscience entrepreneurs, with 38 start-ups already on or around the UCSF research campus, but the demand for new start-up facilities continues to exceed our space,’ said Jeff Bluestone, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
‘Bayer’s new incubator will augment that ecosystem, offering lab space and access to commercial knowledge to help more scientists translate their work into products that improve patients’ lives.’
With the CoLaborator, Bayer aims to help start-ups establish their research labs, with academic researchers spinning out new firms and venture capital groups being the likely sources of these companies.
In addition to lab facilities, access to the global expertise and equipment of Bayer’s research network will be available to CoLaborator scientists.
In return for low-cost, ready to use lab space and access to its global expertise, Bayer would seek preferred access to partner with the emerging companies.