DEL MAR, Calif. – Rising before dawn, the head of Pfizer Inc.’s research lab in San Diego fills her thermos with coffee and follows the headlights of her Honda Element to the foot of 15th Street, where a beach parking lot is already filling up.
Catherine Mackey, 50, trudges in her wetsuit across the sand beneath a murky gray sky, a new surfboard under her arm. A handful of surfers are already in the water, hoping to ride the 4-foot breakers to shore – and to network with people like Mackey.
In San Diego’s booming biomedical industry, opportunity tends to come in waves. Surfing has become a way to make contacts, get face time with the boss and arrange deals.
“It’s the new golf,” said 48-year-old biotech entrepreneur Laura Shawver as she prepared to join Mackey in the chilly water.
San Diego’s biotech industry – surpassed only by research hubs in San Francisco and Boston – was born near the beach in La Jolla, where a critical mass of world-renowned research institutions are clustered – Salk Institute, Scripps Research Institute and Burnham Institute, along with the University of California, San Diego.
It makes sense that people in the industry would discover surfing in a place with a mild climate and miles of pristine beaches. But the sport also seems suited to an unpredictable business marked by stunning highs and crashing lows.
The industry’s passion for surfing is evident at sunrise, when high-powered biotech players equipped with the latest gear begin arriving at a stretch of shoreline known for its good surf.
Between waves, they pick up the latest gossip in a local industry of more than 300 biomedical companies, which over the years have produced such breakthroughs as the PSA test for prostate cancer and the first antibody drug. The lawyers, financiers and scientists who attend the predawn gatherings have a name for them: board meetings.
“It’s where the best business gets done,” said Paul Grayson, who invests in biotech ventures and just filled a business development position at one of his companies with an executive referred by a surfing pal.
Networking wasn’t what initially drove many biotech players into the surf. A desire to stay fit or work off stress motivated many professionals. Joel Martin, a venture capitalist, says the intense concentration required by surfing allows him to put day-to-day worries aside.
“You can go back to the office with a clear head,” he said.
Shawver, a Iowa native who is chief executive of Phenomix Corp., a company working on drugs for immune disorders and metabolic diseases, said she took up surfing because it looked beautiful and exciting.
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