San Francisco

Faced with a continuing slump in US financial markets, biotechnology firms are turning down the chance to move into premises on a top university campus.

Nearly 100 researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), are set to move into laboratories at the university's new Mission Bay campus in January.

But not a single technology firm has yet signed up to move into the new campus at UCSF, one of the United States' most prestigious biomedical research universities. Plans to construct a laboratory building for such firms are in limbo. An $85- million commercial office sits vacant on the site, and construction of a second one has been halted.

UCSF officials say that they planned to accommodate professors in buildings adjacent to technology companies to develop “synergies”, which they hoped would speed drug development as well as enhancing staff recruitment and retention.

But a weak economy, the cost of doing business in San Francisco and the fact that 20% of the city's offices are vacant seem to have dissuaded firms from moving to Mission Bay.

University officials are putting a brave face on the situation, professing optimism that high-technology tenants will eventually move in. But there is frustration that, after two years of marketing, prospective tenants keep dropping out.

“We are disappointed,” says Bruce Spaulding, vice-chancellor for planning at UCSF. “But we remain optimistic — the long-range prognosis is good.”

The project's troubles may alarm planners of other schemes in less auspicious locations, including Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston and Dallas, Texas, which have recently announced large investments aimed at attracting biotechnology businesses into close proximity to academic researchers (see Nature 417, 107; 2002).