Setting the Stage for an Innovative 2024

A Letter From Our Executive Director

As we kick off 2024, we reflect on the ecosystem wins we witnessed in 2023 and gear up for the exciting developments on the horizon.

Thank you to our members, academic partners, policy champions, and industry stakeholders. You all are the life blood of life science in the Greater Los Angeles region. Last year was a challenging year for our industry, especially in LA, where we are often overshadowed by high-profile personalities and news events. However, the strength, resilience, and growth that we have experienced is because of your willingness to come together as an industry, listen, understand key opportunities and issues, and collaborate on solutions. With this approach, we are seeing a breakdown of both perceived and real barriers for innovation and investment, setting the stage for a very exciting 2024.

Life in the Greater Los Angeles area will always be unique. We are able to tap into one of the largest population bases with true diversity, key investment partners, incredible NIH funding, tremendous real estate potential, and our superpower: world-class research institutions. This is why we are seeing increased capital flow into the region, including the development of an immunology and immunotherapy research center two miles from UCLA. This news, for a short period of time, outshined anything that Hollywood or our great sports teams could generate.

We are garnering not only local media attention, but attention across the state and nation. Our economic strength, job creation, and growth potential are just getting started. Biocom California looks forward to the continued partnership with the City of Pasadena as we explore how their recent land-use changes will support current and welcome new life science companies. The micro-clusters from Thousand Oaks to Santa Clarita, across the West Side, Downtown and the South Bay all have initiatives to grow life science companies.

This past year, we have been working in partnership with BioscienceLA, Larta Institute and the LAEDC in a GrowLABio campaign. Our new “Spotlight” series highlighted the region’s individual geographic life science micro-clusters and the key industry players in these communities. We had our most successful Life Science Forum in partnership with BizFed Institute, and the highest attended industry CEO Summit in LA to-date.

Finally, direct conversations with policymakers, including the State of California, the LA County Board of Supervisors, and leaders in cities throughout our region, confirm the eagerness to partner with us to create new programs and incentives that will drive our “mega-cluster” to the next level.

Please send us your success stories and needs, so that we can be supportive, overcome barriers and share these positive achievements with the goal of enriching our life science ecosystem.

You are the life blood of the Southland, and you drive the energy, support, and success that we are seeing. We look forward to keeping up this momentum and achieving even greater heights together in 2024!

Sincerely,

Dan Gober
Los Angeles Executive Director, Biocom California