Janssen R&D Opens Lab Space to Individual Entrepreneurs

Shared lab facilities at Janssen Labs (Janssen Research & Development)

Janssen Labs at San Diego, part of Janssen Research and Development and the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, is expanding its open laboratory facilities to individual life science entrepreneurs to conduct early stage research. The facility, open for a year, is already home to 18 start-up companies in the life sciences.

Janssen Labs is housed at the company’s research center in La Jolla, California and provides modular laboratory and office space and equipment to start-ups developing solutions in therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, and instrumentation. The goal is to encourage the scientist-entrepreneurs to concentrate on their science to achieve preclinical proofs-of-concept with fewer day-to-day administrative distractions.

The company says start-ups can take part in Janssen Labs without any future commitments to collaborating or sharing their discoveries with their hosts. Participating companies are not required to offer Janssen R&D an equity stake, and are free to develop products on their own or in partnership with partners of their choosing, including Janssen R&D.

The new features at Janssen Labs are aimed at making the facility more attractive to life science start-ups at their earliest stages, often when they involve individual researchers. For these individual scientist-entrepreneurs is a shared laboratory (pictured at top) with single-bench space. The shared equipment includes fume hoods, refrigeration, emergency power, and emergency shower and eyewash. Also available to individual scientist-entrepreneurs is open-plan office space, as well as conference rooms and high-speed Internet. The new shared space is expected to house up to 10 individuals in the labs and 20 participants in the offices.

Janssen Labs now has 18 participating companies, most from California but also a few from elsewhere in the U.S., as well as Germany, Mexico, and Italy. The companies are developing therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics, and instrumentation, as well as one firm building health care IT solutions. Janssen says two companies already graduated from the facility, with one moving to its own independent space.

Read more:

• Life Sciences Can Generate Start-Ups, With a Little Help
• Health Care Technology Accelerator Boosts Seed Funding
• Merck Serono, Compugen to Form Toxicity Biomarkers Start-Up
• GSK, Johnson & Johnson Join in Life Science Venture Fund

Hat tip: Xconomy

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