San Diego Biotech: Companies, Startups and the Torrey Pines Cluster

San Diego Biotech at a Glance

San Diego biotech is the cluster of biopharmaceutical, genomics and medical technology companies around the research institutes of La Jolla’s Torrey Pines Mesa and the neighboring districts of northern San Diego. It is one of the leading US hubs, smaller than Boston/Cambridge and the San Francisco Bay Area but with distinct strengths, as our guide to global biotech hubs shows.

The first five figures are from GEN’s 2026 ranking of the top 10 US biopharma clusters. Biocom California’s 2026 economic impact report counts 61,866 direct life-science jobs and 155,621 jobs in total supported by the industry in the region. On talent, CBRE’s 2026 ranking places San Diego eighth among US life-science markets, and its core life-science employment grew in 2025 for the first time in three years.

From Hybritech to Today

San Diego biotech began with Hybritech, founded in 1978 by UC San Diego’s Ivor Royston and Howard Birndorf to develop monoclonal antibody diagnostics and regarded as the region’s first biotech company. Eli Lilly acquired it in 1986. The sale did more than reward its founders: Hybritech alumni went on to start dozens of San Diego companies, beginning with Gen-Probe, and created the pool of experienced executives that the cluster still relies on.

A series of landmark exits followed. Warner-Lambert bought La Jolla’s Agouron Pharmaceuticals, maker of the HIV drug Viracept, for $2.1 billion in stock in 1999. IDEC Pharmaceuticals, which developed Rituxan, merged with Biogen in 2003 to form Biogen Idec. Bristol Myers Squibb acquired Amylin, the diabetes company, in 2012 for about $5.3 billion in equity value. And Illumina, founded in 1998, bought Solexa in 2007, a deal that took it into the next-generation sequencing business it now leads.

The pattern has held ever since: San Diego builds companies to the point where a larger company pays a premium for them, and the proceeds and people flow back into new startups.

Where Biotech Sits in San Diego

• Torrey Pines Mesa. The research core along North Torrey Pines Road: the Salk Institute, Scripps Research and Sanford Burnham Prebys, with companies such as Capricor and Erasca nearby.
• University City and Campus Point. Next to UC San Diego: Illumina’s headquarters, Kura Oncology and Arcturus, and Alexandria’s Campus Point, where a 427,000 sq ft research hub was delivered for Bristol Myers Squibb.
• Sorrento Mesa and Sorrento Valley. The largest concentration of lab buildings: Dexcom, Viking Therapeutics, RayzeBio, Kumquat Biosciences and the BioLabs San Diego incubator.
• Del Mar Heights and Carmel Valley. Along El Camino Real: Neurocrine, Halozyme, Acadia and Travere, and the Torrey Heights campus where Pfizer opened its oncology research center.
• Carlsbad. Further north: Ionis Pharmaceuticals and Tyra Biosciences.

The Research Institutes on the Mesa

Few places pack as many independent research institutes into a few square miles as the Torrey Pines Mesa.

• The Salk Institute, founded by polio vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk and opened in 1963, in a Louis Kahn building that is now a historic landmark.
• Scripps Research, founded in 1924, which has contributed to more than 15 FDA-approved therapies, including Humira, and whose faculty includes the Nobel laureates Barry Sharpless and Ardem Patapoutian.
• UC San Diego, whose School of Medicine received more than $425 million of NIH funding in fiscal 2025, fourth among public institutions.
• Sanford Burnham Prebys, founded in 1976 as the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation, which took the Prebys name after a $100 million gift in 2015 and marks its 50th anniversary in 2026.
• The La Jolla Institute for Immunology, founded in 1988 and now employing more than 450 people, and the J. Craig Venter Institute, whose La Jolla headquarters sits on the UC San Diego campus.

Leading San Diego Biotech Companies

Medical technology is a second pillar: Dexcom reported $4.66 billion of revenue in 2025 and ResMed $5.65 billion in its fiscal year to June 2026.

The commercial companies show San Diego’s range. Halozyme earned $868 million of royalties in 2025 from partners using its ENHANZE technology, a licensing business model in its own right. Ionis and its partners won four FDA approvals in the 14 months to October 2026, including Dawnzera for hereditary angioedema, Zanvastro for Alexander disease and GSK’s Hibsago for chronic hepatitis B, and Travere’s Filspari became the first FDA-approved drug for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis in April 2026.

More decisions are coming. San Diego’s Capricor Therapeutics expects an FDA decision on deramiocel for Duchenne muscular dystrophy by November 22, 2026, and our PDUFA calendar tracks it alongside the other FDA decisions due through May 2027.

Big Pharma Is Building

Large companies are investing in San Diego even as the startup market cools. According to Savills, Pfizer opened a 230,000 sq ft oncology research center at Torrey Heights in 2026 for about 650 employees, Alexandria delivered a 427,000 sq ft research hub for Bristol Myers Squibb at Campus Point, and Novartis began building a 466,000 sq ft biomedical research center due for completion in 2029.

Many more pharma companies own San Diego operations through acquisitions: Johnson & Johnson (Ambrx), Merck (Prometheus and Cidara), Eli Lilly (Ventyx), Lundbeck (Longboard), Novartis (Avidity and Regulus), Vertex (Crinetics) and Bristol Myers Squibb (Turning Point, Mirati and RayzeBio). For local biotechs, that means potential partners and acquirers have research teams in the same few square miles.

Acquisitions also create new companies: as part of Novartis’s purchase of Avidity, Avidity’s cardiology programs were spun out into a new company, Atrium Therapeutics.

Lab Space and Real Estate

San Diego’s lab market is adjusting after a construction boom. Savills put overall life-science vacancy at 28.5% in the third quarter of 2026, made up of 25.8% direct and 2.8% sublease vacancy, against 27.9% a year earlier. Cushman & Wakefield, which defines the market slightly differently from GEN, counts about 26.6 million sq ft of inventory, with average asking rents of $67.09 per sq ft and about 1.3 million sq ft under construction, roughly 70% of it pre-leased.

Capital is still flowing to the best campuses. The 520,000 sq ft Torrey Heights campus in Del Mar Heights, where Pfizer leased 230,000 sq ft, was refinanced with a $465 million loan, and Pacific Center, a 525,000 sq ft campus in Sorrento Mesa, secured $290 million of refinancing and signed its first tenant. For companies, the result is more choice and better terms than at any point since 2021.

Recent Acquisitions of San Diego Biotechs

San Diego companies are buyers as well: Neurocrine completed its $2.9 billion acquisition of Soleno Therapeutics in May 2026. Our biotech M&A trends analysis explains why pharma is paying these prices.

Startups, Investors and Incubators

Biocom California, founded in 1995 and based in San Diego, is the industry association that holds the ecosystem together, with offices across California, in Washington and in Tokyo. It is the founding partner of BioLabs San Diego, an incubator in northern San Diego whose partners include Thermo Fisher, Daiichi Sankyo, Otsuka, Eli Lilly and Lundbeck. Local investors such as Forward Ventures, founded in 1990, work alongside national funds that back San Diego companies.

Public markets reopened for San Diego in 2026. ADARx Pharmaceuticals raised about $446 million in its September IPO and BlossomHill Therapeutics about $168 million in August, while the already-listed Erasca and Tyra Biosciences raised about $633 million in July and about $400 million in September. Our biotech venture capital guide explains how these rounds fit together.

San Diego vs Boston and the Bay Area

San Diego is smaller than the two largest US hubs. Boston/Cambridge has more than twice its lab space and far more NIH funding, and the Bay Area raises several times as much venture capital. What San Diego offers is focus: genomics around Illumina, RNA-targeted medicines around Ionis, neuroscience around Neurocrine and Acadia, drug delivery around Halozyme, and a habit of producing companies that large buyers want. Our guides to Boston biotech and Bay Area biotech cover the other two hubs.

The Challenges

• Funding. Savills counted $1.4 billion of life-science venture capital across 113 deals in the first three quarters of 2026, down 34.1% from a year earlier and the lowest total for that period since 2022.
• Jobs. Direct life-science employment fell 2.55% in 2025, mainly in research and development and in medical device manufacturing, according to Biocom California’s 2026 report.
• Lab space. Overall lab vacancy reached 28.5% in the third quarter of 2026. In central San Diego, CBRE measured vacancy at 22.4% at the end of 2025, up from 2.2% in the third quarter of 2021.
• Research funding. The San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation counted 336 NIH-funded projects at the end of 2025, down from 402 a year earlier.
• Losing headquarters. Each acquisition removes an independent company from the region, although several buyers are expanding their San Diego research operations.

San Diego and Asia

San Diego has some of the closest ties with Japanese pharma of any US hub, and its links with China and Korea are growing.

• Kura Oncology and Kyowa Kirin. A 2024 deal with $330 million upfront and a 50/50 US profit share, worth up to about $1.5 billion; Kura received a $135 million milestone when Komzifti launched.
• Ionis and Ono Pharmaceutical. Ono paid $280 million upfront in 2025 for a global license to sapablursen.
• Neurocrine and Nxera. Neurocrine licensed muscarinic agonists from Japan’s Sosei Heptares, now Nxera, in 2021 for $100 million upfront and up to $2.6 billion in milestones; direclidine entered Phase 3 in 2025. Neurocrine’s valbenazine is sold in Japan by Tanabe Pharma as Dysval.
• Kumquat Biosciences has partnered with Eli Lilly, Takeda and, in 2025, Bayer, in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion for its KRAS G12D inhibitor.
• Korea. Artiva Biotherapeutics was spun out of Korea’s GC Cell in 2019 and holds rights outside Asia to its natural killer cell platform.
• China. Erasca in-licensed its RAS-targeting programs from China’s Joyo Pharmatech and Medshine Discovery in 2024 for $22.5 million upfront in total, and Avenzo Therapeutics licensed an EGFR/HER3 antibody-drug conjugate from DualityBio in 2025 for $50 million upfront and up to about $1.15 billion in milestones.

Biocom California’s Tokyo office and its presence at BioJapan reflect how established the Japan corridor is. For China-sourced assets, the Erasca and Avenzo deals show the model of a San Diego company taking global rights outside Greater China; our guide to in-licensing from China covers the diligence involved.

What San Diego Biotechs Need From Partners

• Non-dilutive capital. With venture funding down, licensing regional rights in Japan, China or Korea can fund development while the company keeps the US. Our playbook for licensing Asia rights explains how these deals are structured.
• Platform partners. San Diego’s technology companies, from Halozyme to Ionis, earn much of their revenue from partners, and the right partner can turn a platform into a royalty stream.
• Assets to build around. Companies such as Erasca, Avenzo and Crystalys, whose gout drug was discovered by Japan’s Fuji Yakuhin, were built on in-licensed molecules. Our guide to pharmaceutical licensing agreements explains the terms involved.

The Bottom Line

San Diego is a focused, highly productive biotech hub built on world-class institutes, a deep bench of experienced founders and a track record of companies that pharma wants to buy. Funding and lab markets are under pressure, but large companies are building locally and recent exits have refilled the system. Its strong connections with Japan, and growing ones with China and Korea, make cross-border partnering a natural part of how San Diego companies grow.

If you are a San Diego biotech looking for partners in Asia, or an Asian company looking for partners in San Diego, talk to our team.