ROC (Real Office Centers) Santa Monica announced on Wednesday that it is dedicating a portion of the top floor of its 44,602 sq. ft. Santa Monica location at 604 Arizona to incubating and accelerating bioscience startups.
Management of this incubator/accelerator will be supported by LABioHub a new organization focused on promoting the life science industry in Los Angeles as well as a growing list of other collaborating partners.
Applicants may apply by filling out the application form found via this link – http://calxstars.com/application.
“Life science research is in abundance in the Los Angeles area and now there will be a hub for turning that research into a launching pad for local startups and job creation,” said Howard J. Leonhardt, LABioHub and Startup California Co-leader and Executive Chairman of Leonhardt Ventures.
The Cities of Santa Monica and Los Angeles have both stepped forward to lend their support behind this initiative.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Nicholas Greif of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development led an effort to gather together local biotech and medtech industry advocates to put ideas into action in creating more life science jobs in the Los Angeles metro area. LABioHub emerged from this meeting and Howard Leonhardt and Richard Koffler agreed to take the leadership reigns.
Jennifer Taylor, City of Santa Monica Economic Development Office, said the City sees biotech and medtech as a great opportunity for high wage clean industry employment growth in the City and the region.
“We are very excited to support these efforts and work with ROC and LABioHub to help make the Life Science Incubator a reality here in Santa Monica,” Taylor said.
Bioscience additional local resource providers that have been lined up so far include:
— Cal-X Stars 5 Year Businesss Accelerator
— Calxelerator Startup Launch 15 Week Accelerator
— UCLA Extension Biotechnology Engineering Certificate Program
— Children’s Hospital Los Angeleles Center for Innovation
— UCLA California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) Life Science Incubator and Core Laboratories
— Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA) Healthcare
The vision is creating a central community hub space where scientists and life science start-up founders can access resources to conduct experiments and build successful life science companies.
Walter Grieves, Managing Director at ROC Santa Monica said shared biotech research lab space accompanied by a full service co-working space is highly needed in West Los Angeles.
“We are glad to be leading the way to fulfill this need,” Grieves said. “This is just the start of a long term plan for our organization to support the high growth life science industry. We have similar projects underway in Orange County and San Diego and have plans for other facilities within the Los Angeles region.”
The incubator will provide Local R&D Lab space access, Educational seminars and classes, co-working space, conference rooms with full digital media, and an inventory list of L.A. area lab equipment assets and collaborative research facilities including those for completing per-clincial and clinical studies.
ROC Santa Monica offers collaborative workspace for startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses in the heart of Silicon Beach.
ROC Santa Monica location, previously occupied by Google, offers more than 200 socially and environmentally conscious offices.
