Where Biotechs Go to Start Up

The co-founders of Hatchspaces LLC appeared Oct. 15 at the Gold Coast Executive Forum to explain the vision of their new biotech campus in Newbury Park. Allan Glass and Howard Kozloff, the co-founders, talked about acquiring and converting two buildings that now comprise Hatchcampus at Conejo Spectrum, which debuted a mere four weeks prior. “What we’re hoping is that this location will serve as the center of the community,” Glass told about 80 guests, who are local business owners and C-level executives, over libations and Korean tacos from the Kogi truck, one of the progenitors of L.A.’s gourmet food truck movement, as the sun set on a stretch of the freshly minted biotech campus. “Our vision for here is that it’s not two isolated buildings,” Kozloff said about his creative space for life sciences companies located at 1525-1535 Rancho Conejo Blvd. in Newbury Park. With both buildings — totaling 160,000 square feet — currently at 70 percent occupancy by Amgen Inc. and other companies, Glass and Kozloff discussed marketing the remaining 30 percent with about 45,000 square feet to play with, dividing it into four levels of leasing options designed to accommodate an enterprise’s comfort level with option to scale up. In essence, the pair has applied a WeWork model to the life sciences real estate. “What we’re hoping is that, like the vacancies we have right now, break it up into smaller 2,000 square foot, 4,000 square foot labs,” Kozloff said. Brent Reinke, partner at Musick, Peeler and Garrett in Westlake Village and a co-producer of Gold Coast, introduced the duo and spoke about their will to create an eco-system to support and nurture the area’s life sciences community. He mentioned biotech startup Kythera Biopharmaceuticals and how that company got bought by Allergan for $2.1 billion four years ago but unfortunately moved out of the Thousand Oaks area. “What we’re seeing now is a slow replication of that process,” Reinke said. The difference now, Reinke noted, is more retention. “The whole objective or goal is to invest in companies here and keep them here,” Reinke said, as venture capital funding increasingly comes in from Asia and from institutional venture capitalists in other parts of the country. Demand for life science space Glass and Kozloff explained how they came to get involved in cultivating real estate for the local biotech community. “We’re real estate guys from L.A.,” Kozloff explained. He said they came across the property and bought it “because we liked the bones of the building. “We look at what the community is already doing,” he continued. “We did not intend to get into the biosciences (but saw that) there was a demand for purposeful multitenant life sciences buildings.” It made sense for the duo to invest in the Newbury Park property. “If you look around greater L.A. from Orange County to North Ventura County, this region is most advanced in (terms of life sciences facilities),” Kozloff said. “We’re very encouraged to be here in the Thousand Oaks area.” Glass and Kozloff’s goal is aligned with the local biotech community, “to help those companies grow from stage to stage but stay in the community,” as Kozloff put it. Reinke said that Glass and Kozloff have dedicated themselves to creating the “appropriate life sciences wet lab space.” “It’s been a huge challenge to go into a commercial building and have to convert it into a life-sciences building,” Reinke said. “Scientists are used to being in leftover spaces,” Kozloff added. “We want to change that paradigm.” Ultimately, Glass and Kozloff explained, their mission is bigger than mere real estate wheeling and dealing. They want to invest in a thriving economy of innovation. “We looked at it more as we want to be part of the life sciences community,” Kozloff said. “We want to help what you do.”