News snippets from San Francisco biotechiest neighborhood.
Farmers’ market returns
Spring is really here, and after being shut down since November, Mission Bay’s farmers’ market is back. Buy local produce on the UCSF campus every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Five Prime Therapeutics to Depart
The life sciences company Five Prime Therapeutics is moving out of the space it rents in the Gladstone Institutes, research entities affiliated with UCSF. Gladstone needs more room, so Five Prime will be moving back to South San Francisco later this year.
“We would have loved to stay in Mission Bay,” said Julia P. Gregory, Five Prime’s president and CEO.
Mission Bay doesn’t have anything available elsewhere for the 115-employee company. It needs about 50-70,000 square feet. “There’s a lot of space available in South San Francisco,” Gregory said.
Will the Warriors move to Mission Bay?
A few weeks ago the sports rumor mill spun out the ideas that a) The Golden State Warriors are for sale, and b) they might be moving to Mission Bay.
The Oakland Tribune wrote about the financial likelihood of a move like that here.
Mission Loc@l can’t tell you what’s going to happen to the Warriors, but the land in question, Seawall Lot 337, is the subject of an upcoming meeting of the San Francisco Port Commission on April 27. More on the development process here.
The lot in question, along Third Street, is currently where Giants fans park. Regardless of what’s developed, it will remain in the San Francisco Port Authority’s ownership.
Answering the port’s request for proposal for Seawall Lot 337, The San Francisco Giants joined with a group of companies to form a development team – see below – which has been in ongoing negotiations with the Port for nearly a year, according to Renee Martin, the port’s media and public relations manager.
The current plan includes a music venue but no sports arena. However, that proposal could get changed. Anything being built on this land will undergo substantial review from a smattering of government agencies, including the Mayor’s Office.
The development team: the San Francisco Giants, Wilson Meany Sullivan, Kenwood Investments, The Cordish Company, Stockbridge Capital, and Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C. Farallon owns the undeveloped lots in Mission Bay and is also Mission Bay’s Master Developer under agreement with San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.
UCSF tops public institutions in NIH funding, again
Mission Bay’s academic engine netted the most National Institutes of Health funding of any public institution for a second year running, $463 million in NIH funding in 1,010 grants, fellowships and the like. Stanford got $307 million, Harvard $364 million. The university’s school of pharmacy ranked first in its category for the 30th consecutive year, according to UCSF.
UCSF and Genentech Drug Partnership
South San Francisco-based Genentech, Inc. is collaborating with UCSF’s Small Molecule Discovery Center for drug development. In return for funding, the center will work with Genentech scientists to identify and screen small-molecules that have drug potential.