Biotech incubator opens its doors at UC Berkeley

BERKELEY — The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) at the University of California, Berkeley, will open a new biotech incubator on Thursday, May 6, hoping to duplicate the success of the "QB3 Garage@UCSF," which has helped birth more than 28 biotech startups since 2006. Recent UC Berkeley Ph.D. graduate Wesley Chang is the QB3 Garage@Berkeley's first tenant, occupying one-eighth of an 800-square-foot windowless basement room in the campus's Stanley Hall, and saving a lot on the costs of getting his new company, Aperys, LLC , off the ground. "This is a good fit for us, because we have access to the Biomolecular Nanotechnology Center, which is right across the hall," said Chang, a former UC San Francisco post-doctoral fellow who hopes to sell specialized cell culture platforms that allow researchers to grow nerve cells in precise patterns to simplify experiments. "With the mixed capabilities here, including microfabrication and cell culture labs, we can do our research without having to put up our own infrastructure." Early-stage costs, including lab space and expensive equipment, are a big hurdle for start-ups, which typically have few investors. Chang, for example, has a small business grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to tide him over until the next phase of funding, whether it's additional federal funding, venture capital or from angel investors. "I'm even now applying for money that will allow us to move on to the next phase, and at the same time to start building a base of customers that potentially could be recurring customers for our devices," he said.