Originally published September 2019 at https://www.cityofvista.com.
As startups continue to drive life sciences innovation, incubators across the nation will play an even more important role in accelerating promising science while helping to fuel the economy. These incubators offer temporary accommodations to risky startups that could, one day, develop the next breakthrough therapies for infectious diseases, cancer, diabetes, Alzhemers and more. These spaces — which provide cheap rent to entrepreneurs in the early stages of commercialization — are an increasingly important way to test the science of young startups without burning through a huge amount of cash.
One local incubator that is providing critical workspace to big-thinking entrepreneurs in biotech is the North County Biotech Incubator in Vista. The incubator includes fully furnished multi-tenant laboratories, as well as five single-use labs, with a total of over 5,000 square feet of incubator space. The facility — which includes basic equipment for cell culture / drug discovery research — has furnished and customizable laboratory space for short term leasing.
“We have a fantastic diversity of companies today that are revolutionizing a number of concepts and products,” said Founder Dexter Gaston. “And we provide a lot more than just space and equipment. We can help with business plans, raising capital, accounting, shipping, etc…”
The North County Incubator building in Vista was originally purchased in 2003 by Gaston and his family, who began operating as LabTrader Scientific Equipment. Then, around 2008, Gaston decided to lease out some office space and add some research laboratories. The facility now has five research companies in various growth modes occupying between 300 and 1,800 square feet of laboratory space.
“We provide furnished labs by partnering with LabTrader to supply the standard laboratory equipment,” Gaston said. “We are very unique in that each tenant has dedicated space with dedicated equipment. This provides additional security for their intellectual property as well as timely use of instrumentation and assurance that another research team has not caused any potential contamination or misuse.”
“More and more mature research and pharmaceutical companies are looking for our model,” he added. “It is actually less expensive to rent everything, especially when priorities change, which require other equipment and the retirement of existing assets.”
For Gaston, the decision to transform the facility into a biotech incubator was a smart one.
“We had a company wanting to rent space but I did not have any room,” he said. “The CEO kept insisting until I gave in and converted some offices to laboratories. Based on what they were able to quickly accomplish at our facility, the company raised a large Series A from premier Silicon Valley VC funds a year later,” he said. “We have another company that raised $4 million ( Neofluidics),” he said. “We want to bring more biotech to Vista.”
The above CEO that Gaston is referring to is Mike Seely, who runs Ascus Biosciences, which makes microbial feed additive products for animals. Today, most of the company’s R&D and commercial activities have been in livestock animals, but Ascus also does work in some companion animal species.
Ascus was a tenant at the incubator for about a year in the early days of the company from about mid-2015 to 2016. “We originally connected with Dexter and his team through a tenant of theirs (who we are friends with) who suggested the incubator as an alternative to renting out our own small facility,” said Seely, who has since relocated.
Seely said the incubator helped his startup with access to high quality and reliable tools and infrastructure that did not require a large upfront investment. He and his Ascus team were also provided with cost-effective and rapid facilities, management, and maintenance support from the Biotech Incubator team.
“In the early days of our company’s life, we needed to invest our somewhat limited resources into activities that created value (e.g. technology development milestones, field trials, IP, etc…), and the Biotech Incubator allowed us to do just that as we did not have to invest as much capital into basic operational things such as lab buildout, equipment, etc…” he said. “It was a great way for us to invest more resources into activities that mattered and drove value creation for our business as opposed to ‘maintenance’ activities, which are important, but at the end of the day are not the driving force behind the techno/economic arbitrage being pursued.”
Seely said spaces like the North County Biotech Incubator are critical for sustaining the ecosystem.
“In general, open access to labs and good infrastructure is a great way to put resources into the work rather than the buildout. Also, you can meet other people doing cool things, which is an additional benefit,” he said.
Dexter Gaston and his daughter Jacqueline Gaston Ramirez (L) run the North County Biotech Incubator
One of those cool companies doing cool things is Janus-I Science, which combines cutting edge analytical technologies with advances in biology and algorithmic learning to create high-value assays for healthcare, infectious disease identification, biosecurity, intelligence, and other national security needs — from chronic wound treatment to analyzing infectious agents, identify emerging viruses and more. The startup, which was launched in March 2018 and is a current tenant at the North County Biotech Incubator, creates technologies to support the missions of its government partners and then commercializes them in collaboration with industry-leading therapeutic, diagnostic and research product companies.
David Ecker, CEO of Janus-I Science, said the Incubator gives companies like his a solid chance for success and growth.
“In the past, starting up companies was a lot harder. You had to lease a space and then start from scratch equipping the lab paying retail for everything,” he said. “Incubators provide a low cost, lower fuss way to get up and running. With an incubator like Dexter’s we soon found other exciting companies moving in, providing an intellectually stimulating environment. Dexter himself has been quite a resource as he has a lot of expertise in how to get things done and you can ask him anything.”
Ecker added that Vista is also an ideal location.
“When we were looking for incubator space we did not find a lot north of La Jolla. The La Jolla area is exciting but very crowded,” he said. “It used to be I could leave my office in North County and be sitting in a seminar at UCSD or the Salk Institute within a half hour. Now with parking and traffic, it kills half a day to do it. Our employees who live in Vista, Carlsbad, San Marcos, Valley Center, and Encinitas did not want to fight La Jolla traffic every day. If more incubators were built in Vista, companies will come.”
“The quality of life here is the best,’ Ecker added. “And our guests like the microbreweries for after hours.”
For more information on the North County Biotech Incubator, contact Dexter Gaston at biotech.incubator@gmail.com or call 760–560–0013.
Economic Development contact for the City of Vista:
Kevin Ham
Economic Development Director
