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New campus will be sited near the University of Southern California

LOS ANGELES - 02/18/05 - While the Los Angeles area has spawned big-name companies like Amgen Inc., Advanced Bionics Corp. and MiniMed, the region lags behind tech leaders in the Bay Area and San Diego, according to a recent piece in the Los Angeles Daily News.

In creating a new redevelopment zone clustered around the University of Southern California's Health Sciences campus, Los Angeles leaders seek to tap into an industry that, according to the California Healthcare Institute, generated $32.3 billion in worldwide revenue last year, the paper said.

"We could have the makings of a fertile bio-med industry here," said Gerry Hertzberg, special-projects deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina. "We've got a lot of companies here, but we don't have a hub. There needs to be people to hire, facilities to go into, patent attorneys and a defined area for venture capitalists."

Proponents of the project believe the zone, anchored by a 100-acre park next to the University of Southern California (USC) and surrounded by a 1,207-acre redevelopment area under joint city and county authority, will create 8,500 new jobs in the next 15 years. Construction will begin in March of 2006, with the first phase set to rap up 18 months later.

"Despite its great educational institutions, Los Angeles has been left behind over the past 25 years," David Gollaher, president and chief executive officer of the La Jolla-based CHI, a political-policy advocacy group for the bio-med industry, told the paper. "If you look out 10 or 20 years, and ask what are the industries where California has a sustainable competitive advantage, life science is on the top of the pyramid."

With the state doling out billions to fund stem-cell research after the passage of [California State] Proposition 71 in November, Los Angeles is quickly getting in line to match its scientists to the dollars.

{Los Angeles City] Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who represents part of the area encompassing the park and is also running for [Los Angeles] mayor, noted that USC, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California-Los Angeles, would all be close by to provide research and employees for the new jobs.

"This bio-med park will allow us to draw down our share of the $3 billion in stem-cell research dollars," said Villaraigosa. "USC has invested $500 million in the health sciences campus, the county's building a billion dollar replacement hospital at the site, (California State University, Los Angeles) is just a few blocks away, and East Los Angeles College is only a couple miles farther."

Those academic centers have been sending their grads to San Francisco, Orange County, and San Diego, according to bio-med entrepreneur Alfred Mann, who heads both Advanced Bionics and the MannKind Corp. in Valencia.

According to the paper, Mann has been involved in the creation of smaller sites in Northridge, Sylmar and Valencia but enthusiastically endorsed the proposed park as a way to compete with the in-state rivals.

"We're a distant fourth, and the reason is that we don't have any of these parks," Mann said. "If you want to try to develop a biotech industry here, you've got to have these."

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Extended Gate Hours at LA, LB Container Terminals

LONG BEACH – 07/25/05 – The long-awaited OffPeak truck program is now a reality at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach with more than a dozen of the port’s largest container terminals now moving cargo four nights a week and Saturdays; the program is expected to ease the flow of cargo moving through a port complex that handled more than 13.1 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) or almost 35% of all US waterborne container cargo in 2004.