Biotech jobs germinate as San Francisco diversifies
SAN FRANCISCO: A once-vacant rail yard 2 miles from downtown San Francisco is coming to life as a center of biotechnology and transforming San Francisco's economy beyond tourism and financial services.
San Francisco is too dependent on those industries, says Mayor Gavin Newsom, who's using a tax cut and other incentives to woo businesses with growth potential. He's especially targeting biotechnology, which has a foothold in the city's emerging biomedical district known as Mission Bay.
Pfizer Inc, the world's largest drugmaker, will open a five-story biotechnology headquarters in Mission Bay next year. At a so-called biotech hotel, where start-ups rent space, a scientist studies tissue samples for Groningen, Netherlands- based Brains On-Line BV. Partners at Versant Ventures and other venture capital firms on the hotel's top floor can look out at the industry they're funding.
