A nonprofit biotech incubator on East Foothill Boulevard that has spent 22 years giving early-stage companies affordable lab space — without taking equity, royalties, or an ownership stake — reaches a round-number milestone Wednesday when it formally welcomes its 100th tenant.
The Pasadena BioCollaborative Incubator, at 2265 E. Foothill Blvd., will mark the occasion during Innovate Pasadena’s Connect Week with a Deep Tech Crawl beginning at 4:30 p.m. The event includes a program at the incubator followed by a reception at Scaled Science Partners, a nearby innovation space at 2672 E. Walnut St., at 6 p.m.
The 100th company is VelvEtch, a startup working on bio-compatible polymers with applications in drug delivery systems, implantable sensors, and neural interface technologies, according to a City of Pasadena press release dated April 9.
The incubator, known as PBC, opened in 2004 as a 500-square-foot lab. A pair of state legislative allocations brokered by then-state Sen. Jack Scott and championed by then-Mayor Bill Bogaard provided the initial backing, according to Pasadena Now reporting. The goal was to give scientists who lacked university affiliations a place to work and to build a life sciences economy in Pasadena that could outlast any single grant cycle.
The facility has since grown to more than 12,600 square feet. By 2021, PBC had incubated 81 companies, with 25 of them scaling into larger operations, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Among those companies was Calimmune, a gene therapy firm co-founded by Caltech Nobel laureate David Baltimore. Calimmune grew inside the incubator before being acquired by CSL Behring in 2017 for $91 million upfront, with up to $325 million in additional milestone payments, according to CSL Behring’s announcement of the deal. CSL Behring gained Calimmune’s Pasadena research facilities as part of the acquisition.
Wednesday’s event will also honor Dr. Robert “Bud” Bishop, who served as PBC president for roughly a decade before stepping down. Bishop, who holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and an M.B.A., took over leadership in 2017 after the incubator’s founding leader, Bruce Blomstrom, retired in 2016. He guided the organization through much of its growth period.
Eric Duyshart, the current PBC president, said in the city’s press release that the milestone reflects the broader community the incubator serves.
“This is an exciting moment not only for our incubator, but for the broader scientific community we serve,” Duyshart said in the press release. “We are grateful for companies and institutional partners that have been a part of our journey of supporting entrepreneurs and training individuals pursuing careers in a laboratory.”
David Klug, the city’s Economic Development Director, said in the same press release that PBC has played a central role in supporting early-stage companies in Pasadena’s life sciences sector and that celebrating the milestone during Connect Week highlights the city’s innovation community.
Connect Week, which runs April 12 through 16, is organized by the city’s Economic Development Division and Innovate Pasadena, a volunteer-run nonprofit co-founded in 2013 by Mike Giardello and Andy Wilson. Giardello, who returned to the Innovate Pasadena board as chairman in January, also runs Scaled Science Partners, the site of Wednesday evening’s reception.
Registration for the Deep Tech Crawl and other Connect Week events is available at Luma.com/InnovatePasadena. For more information, contact the City of Pasadena Economic Development Division at 626-744-7311.
