Biotech hubs in the US
I recently saw this great article on an intro to biotech [1] and wanted to add my own perspective to it, starting out with the biotech hubs around SF and other locations in the US beyond Harvard/MIT and southern California.
SF and the bay area has its fair share of successful biotech companies, driven primarily by research and entrepreneurship at UCSF, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. These include both traditional therapeutic companies (eg. Forty Seven, Cell Design Labs, 4D Molecular Therapeutics, Akili Interactive), as well as several companies at the intersection of tech and biotech including Personalis, Berkeley Lights, and Gingko Bioworks.
Philadelphia (UPenn) and Seattle (UW/Fred Hutch) are great places to be if you want to do cell therapy. Companies that have spun out of these biotech hubs include Kite and Juno Therapeutics, which received the first FDA approvals for cell therapies and were both acquired soon after, paving the way for all the cell therapy companies that have since started in these areas (Carisma Therapeutics, Cabaletta Bio [2], Sana Bio) .
Some other notable biotech hubs are located in Michigan (University of Michigan), Maryland (John Hopkins / NIH), and the RTP in North Carolina - not surprisingly, regions anchored by large academic centers tend to foster strong biotech ecosystems.
And of course I couldn’t end this without talking about New Hampshire, where some of the world’s largest antibody discovery companies [3] were started.
Another meta-resource I highly suggest is Nathanial Horowitz’s How to Learn Biotech
Disclosure: I own stock in Cabaletta Bio
I’m primarily referring to Glycofi (acquired 2006) and Adimab but you would be surprised at just how much biotech comes out of New Hampshire