San Diego got some ink in the L.A. Times this weekend. First, on Saturday, there was this piece on a San Diego biotech firm’s risky attempts to ship its research off to China to save costs.
An excerpt:
BioDuro Inc., a San Diego company providing contract research services to drug firms, recently opened a 40,000-square-foot lab in Beijing. Immusol Inc., a San Diego biotech firm developing anti-cancer drugs, is outsourcing chemistry work to firms in Beijing and Shanghai.
Much like how the U.S. software industry was forced to remake itself after the technology bust early this decade, the biotech industry is undergoing a painful readjustment as early-stage research moves to lower-cost countries. Ascenta’s chief financial officer, Craig Kussman, came from Discovery Partners International Inc., a San Diego firm that closed up shop after it lost several large research contracts to companies in Asia.
The Sunday paper had this front-page story on the new Ivy Hotel in San Diego. Here’s the headline:
A suite with a fireman’s pole?
San Diego’s racy (and pricey) Ivy Hotel and other hot spots are offering guests more than just pillow mints.