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Brad Bollinger: Buck stem-cell grant puts global spotlight on North Bay

ALSO: REPORT EXPECTED TO SHED LIGHT ON ROLE OF REGION’S SMALL FIRMS

The North Bay typically is not associated with being a center of major medical research with the likes of UCSF or Stanford University.

No more.

Last Wednesday, Novato’s Buck Institute for Age Research was among 12 institutions to receive stem-cell research funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine established by voters in 2004.

The Buck Institute received $20.5 million, the sixth largest of $271 million in grants spread mostly across California’s great research universities.

The grant is, of course, a significant milestone for the Buck Institute. But it also sheds an international spotlight on the North Bay alongside San Francisco and San Diego as places where world-class research is taking place on the most important medical questions of our age.

As is almost always the case, grants of this magnitude carry requirements for every institution that receives them, and the Buck is no different. The institute for regenerative medicine correctly wants to leverage public dollars with private ones. So the actual cost of constructing the 66,000-square-foot stem-cell research building to house 12 new Buck research scientists is estimated at $41 million, which leaves a $20.5 million funding gap to close.

This can be looked at as an obstacle or as an opportunity for the Buck and the North Bay.

It very much appears that whether it is a philanthropist whose mission is improving lives and advancing medicine or even a developer who sees opportunity in participating in the project, it is very much the latter.

***

An aside: Intuitively it kind of makes sense that the North Bay would be home to a high concentration of relatively small, privately held enterprises. After all, it is

a great place for entrepreneurs to live and create businesses across a broad range from wine to professional services to technology.

Now, a study due out Thursday should shed new light on just how many so-called second-stage companies there are in the North Bay – generally defined as non-startups with $1 million to $50 million in sales and 10 to 99 employees – and what that could mean to the region’s future.

The report is by the Michigan-based Edward Lowe Foundation, which was established by the late creator of the world’s first commercial kitty litter to assist companies in their middle-growth stage.

The report, which will examine second-stage companies across the U.S. by region, has the potential to be required reading for business and public officials in all three North Bay counties.

•••

Brad Bollinger is editor in chief and associate publisher of the Business Journal. He can be reached at bbollinger

@northbaybusinessjournal.com or 707-579-2900, ext. 201.