More than two decades ago, UCSF professor of biochemistry Herbert Boyer and venture capitalist Richard Swanson combined their talents to produce the nation’s first drug company based upon gene-splicing techniques developed by Boyer and Stanford colleague Stanley Cohen.

The success of this venture in mass-producing medically important proteins stimulated the growth of a wide-branching network of enterprises that make up today's burgeoning biotechnology industry, which was valued at $83 billion in 1997. The nation's nearly 1,000 biotechnology companies now have 118,000 employees and collectively account for nearly $11 billion in annual sales.

In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, publicly owned biotechnology companies employ more than 19,000 people. Many of these companies concentrate on health care products, that range from cancer vaccines and AIDS drugs to blood-clot busters for stroke and heart attack victims.

An economic engine

At least 60 California biotechnology companies — including two of the largest, Genentech and Chiron — have been successfully launched by UCSF faculty, alumni or by their scientific inventions. These companies employ more than 13,000 people. In addition, scientists from these companies have spun off many additional start-ups.

Even when they do not result in the creation of new private enterprises, UCSF researchers' life-saving discoveries are transferred from university laboratories to the public as soon as possible through patenting and licensing to commercial companies. These companies then develop new products that better meet human health care needs.

Indeed, basic UCSF discoveries have, after commercial research and development, resulted in the creation of 250 new products to improve human health. Examples include:

Better MRI technology for detecting and monitoring disease
A new generation of gene-based diagnostic tests for cancer
Molecules that serve as efficient vehicles for delivering genes or gene-inhibiting genetic material into the cell nucleus, used to develop gene and "antisense" therapies.

Moreover, during the 1997 fiscal year UCSF researchers led all UC campuses in the number of inventions, totaling 153, disclosed to University licensing offices. Not surprisingly, UCSF leads all UC campuses in the amount of royalty income brought to the University from inventions by researchers. In terms of revenue, eight of the top 25 most successful UC inventions, including recombinant growth hormone, insulin, hepatitis B vaccine, and artificial surfactant for infant respiratory distress syndrome, are based on UCSF discoveries.

While the reconfiguration of genes to mass produce protein-based drugs remains a rapidly growing enterprise, genetic engineering is not the only realm in which UCSF discoveries and inventions are being applied in the development of better treatments and health care products. Here are some of the areas in which UCSF researchers are working to improve the health of all.

Genomics and bioinformatics

The explosion of data on genetic codes has spawned a whole new field, called genomics, which is aimed at improving ways of gaining additional useful knowledge from genetic data. Bioinformatics, the development of computer-based strategies to design new drugs and to manage information (such as medical records, or pharmaceutical regimens), also is growing rapidly. UCSF faculty and alumni have been among the leaders of new companies exploiting these technologies. Such companies include, Oacis Healthcare Systems, First DataBank and Lexical Technology.

Drug delivery

UCSF discoveries on how to improve the delivery of drugs to disease targets have resulted in patented inventions and companies such as Cell Genysis and Insite Vision. Examples include the development of liposomes — microscopic sacs that can safely transport drugs within the body — and inhibitors that can prevent the metabolic breakdown in the gut of drugs taken orally, thus enabling more medicine to get to its target tissue.

Medical devices

UCSF inventions that have led to important products include catheters that permit less invasive techniques to better treat heart rhythm disorders and cochlear implants to recover speech perception in the hearing impaired.

Learning disorders

Fundamental research in neurobiology has led to a computer-based treatment for a specific language-learning disorder that affects about 10 percent of children. These children have difficulty making reliable distinctions in normal speech sounds that change rapidly, and the training program helps the children rapidly build a basic foundation of language skills.

Herb Boyer

Genentech founder Herbert Boyer, former professor of biochemistry, helped revolutionize biology and spawn the biotechnology industry.