More good news this week. The state’s biotech sector is on a tear.
San Diego-based Biocom California, the statewide association representing the life science industry, released a new report showing the industry directly provides more than 460,000 jobs and generates nearly $414 billion in business output.
The report also found that the state’s life science organizations expanded employment by 6% in 2022, outpacing all other industries in California as well as the U.S. overall. The industry added more than 26,600 jobs.
Biocom top executive Joe Panetta said, “California continues to be the leading innovation hub for the life science industry, and the 2023 Economic Impact Report provides key data on the impact it has on the state and regional economies.”
He added, “When we create a business environment that encourages innovation, we unleash scientific creativity, leading to medical breakthroughs that will forever improve human health.”
The full report analysis and regional fact sheets are available on Biocom’s website.
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And there is more good news to report about the region’s business sector.
San Diego, along with Austin, Denver, San Jose, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., experienced the highest microbusiness activity in the country during the last quarter of 2022, according to a report published by web domain name registrar GoDaddy and the business school at UC Los Angeles.
The report identified Colorado, Utah, Maryland and Oregon as the top states for microbusiness activity.
However, the study found that overall microbusiness activity nationwide suffered a slight decline after peaking in April 2022
Researchers found that each online microbusiness entrepreneur is associated with creating almost seven jobs at the county level.
“Microbusiness owners, which typically employ 10 or fewer employees, have an outsized economic impact,” said Alexandra Rosen, senior director of Venture Forward, GoDaddy’s microbusiness impact research initiative. “We found that a single microbusiness owner can add nearly seven jobs at the county level, emphasizing the importance of supporting entrepreneurs to spur job growth in local communities.”
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San Diego warehouse club retailer PriceSmart has opened its newest warehouse club in San Miguel, El Salvador, bringing the total number of warehouse clubs in operation by the Company to 51. According to a news release, the San Miguel club is the third in El Salvador and was constructed on 5-acre property 100 miles east of San Salvador, the capital city.
PriceSmart runs 51 warehouse clubs in 12 countries and one U.S. territory in central and south America, as well as the Caribbean.
The company says it plans to open stores in Medellín, Colombia and Escuintla, Guatemala in 2023 and another warehouse club in El Salvador in early 2024. Once these three are open, the company will own and run a total of 54 clubs.
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Single family home prices in San Diego, Carlsbad, and Chula Vista rose slightly in May to $1,055,000, but the rate of price growth slowed to the lowest level since 2016, according to Realtor.com’s monthly report on price trends.
Houses put up for sale in the county remained on the market for 30 days, according to the report. The slowdown in sales has led to a 3% year-over-year decline in the sales price of a home.
The report, which covers housing price trends across the nation, suggests that sale prices may not reach a new peak in 2023. The report also found that home inventory growth continues to slow, with fewer sellers listing their homes compared to last year.
Because of the decline, competition has increased among buyers for the few affordable homes that come to market, the report said.
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San Diego’s RICK Engineering Co. has opened its 11th office in Santa Clarita. According to a news release, RICK will provide civil engineering, design and consulting services to clients in both the public and private market sectors in the area and nearby High Desert. Hoon Hahn, a civil engineer with 29 years of experience, including 22 years with the city of Santa Clarita, will run the office.
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A special program sponsored by the San Diego office of Bank of America is seeking applications from early-stage tech entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds in San Diego for a new free accelerator program. The six-month online program begins in September.
According to a spokeswoman, the program helps entrepreneurs build growth models and strategies and supply access to important connections such as investors. The program was designed to help Black, Hispanic and Native American communities, as well as female entrepreneurs, scale-up their technology-related businesses, the spokeswoman said.
There is a persistent gap in access to growth capital for tech-related minority and women-led funds and minority entrepreneurs.
According to tech news publisher Crunchbase, Black, Latino and female entrepreneurs combined only received about 6% of the total VC funding in the United States. BofA’s program aims to help address this gap and increase funding to underrepresented groups.
More information on the program and how to apply can be found here.
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San Jose-based fast casual eatery Poki Bowl is joining The Row at Civita. It is the newest fast and casual dining eatery to sign a lease at the master-planned community of Civita in Mission Valley, according to a news release.
Nick Nguyen founded the business in 2015, which now consists of a chain of 30 existing and planned locations.
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Boston commercial real estate developer King Street Properties has acquired a building on Oberlin Drive in Sorrento Mesa, which is home to a number of high-profile life science and technology companies. The developer specializes in life science properties.
According to a news release from the developer, San Diego is consistently ranked as one of the top 3 life science clusters in the United States due to its concentration of talent and its growth and volume of funding.
The purchase features a 4-acre site with a 62,000-square-foot building close to University Town Center. King Street says it plans to repurpose the building into move-in ready research and development suites with conferencing and community outdoor workspaces.
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Finally, this item of note … The San Diego Regional Policy & Innovation Center, described as a partnership between the San Diego Foundation, the county of San Diego and the Brookings Institution to conduct research to help solve the region’s biggest problems, has hired Emily Weir as vice president and chief policy and strategy officer.
Previously, Weir served as policy director for now-resigned county Supervisor and Board President Nathan Fletcher. Weir earlier served as s graduate fellow at the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama.
Tom York is a Carlsbad-based independent journalist who specializes in writing about business and the economy. If you have news tips you’d like to share, send them to tom.york@gmail.com.
