Daily Business Report-Oct. 25, 2016
Site plan for the Allied Gardens home project.
Developers Announce Plans to Build
16 Home Project in Allied Gardens
Pebble Creek Companies, Casbri Development Inc. and Presidio Residential Capital have purchased a 6.36-acre parcel of land to build 16 single-family homes in the Allied Gardens area of San Diego. This project is slated to break ground in June 2017. The retail value of the residential community will exceed $11.4 million.
“We expect enthusiastic response to this community because the supply of new and recently built homes in the area is very low,” said Gary Arnold, principal and co-founder of Pebble Creek Companies. “Because of a lack of development-ready lots, new home construction has plummeted in San Diego while demand continues to increase.”
The new development will offer 2,075-square-foot homes with luxury finishes such as granite countertops and stainless steel appliances on lots that have expansive views of the San Diego River Valley. Prices will start in the low $700,000s.
The project is Presidio’s first joint venture with Casbri Development and second joint venture with Pebble Creek. Presidio and Pebble Creek recently broke ground on Afton Way, a five-acre community with eight homes in Carlsbad, where homes are scheduled to be open for sale in late spring 2017.
According to the National Association of Home Builders’ formula to determine the local impact of single-family housng in typical metro areas, adding 16 single-family homes will generate $4.5 million in local income, $576,000 in taxes and other revenue for local governments and 63 local jobs.
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CBRE Group to Handle Leasing for Retail
Portion of Downtown IDEA1 Development
CBRE Group Inc. has been selected to provide leasing services for the 5,000-square-foot retail portion of the six-story IDEA1 mixed-use development under construction in East Village.
IDEA1 occupies a full Downtown city block, situated on E, F, Park and 13th Streets. The developers of the $91 million project, Lowe Enterprises, LaSalle Investment Management and I.D.E.A. Partners, started construction in November 2015. The mid-rise complex will feature 13,000 square feet of commercial space with 295 apartments, 25 ground floor live/work lofts and eight luxury penthouse units.
IDEA1 is located within two blocks of the trolley, across the street from the NewSchool of Architecture and Design and adjacent to the future East Village Green — a community park, which will include approximately 200 parking spaces.
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John David Wicker Selected as
SDSU’s New Athletic Director
By City News Service
San Diego State University announced the hiring of John David Wicker as athletic director, replacing Jim Sterk, who departed for the University of Missouri in August. Wicker was an associate athletic director at SDSU for four years before leaving for Georgia Tech last year.
Wicker said he’s returning to an athletic program experiencing “unprecedented success across all facets of the program, both academically and athletically.”
As a group, student-athletes posted an all-time high grade-point average of 3.01 last spring, and 60 percent of them were named scholar-athletes, he said.
Athletically, the Aztecs football team leads its division in the Mountain West conference, was ranked as high as No. 19 in the polls earlier this season and features the nation’s leading rusher in Donnel Pumphrey.
Wicker pointed out that the men’s basketball team is picked to win the conference, and the men’s soccer team defeated a top-ranked opponent last month.
Wicker called fundraising the “lifeblood” of the athletic program.
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Inovio Shares Tumble After FDA
Halts Trial of Experimental Therapy
FierceBiotech
Inovio Pharmaceuticals has been stopped before it started as its planned Phase III trial of an experimental therapy designed to eliminate precancerous cervical lesions was halted Monday morning by the FDA. Its shares dropped by more than 14 percent premarket on the news.
In a brief update, Inovio said the U.S. regulator “has placed a clinical hold on its proposed Phase III clinical program for VGX-3100,” with the FDA apparently concerned about the shelf-life of the newly designed and manufactured disposable parts of the Cellectra 5PSP immunotherapy delivery device.
It wants additional data to support the trial, according to a statement from the biotech, which Inovio believes will push back the start of the late-stage test into the first half of next year.
“Inovio is working diligently with the FDA to address its concerns and anticipates that the requested data will be available before the end of this year,” the company said in a statement.
Back in 2014, the biotech released data showing its experimental med had hit its primary endpoint, but the tests have proven controversial with some, such as the TheStreet’s Adam Feuerstein, saying it had only won out by spinning the data.
While the delay doesn’t appear to be related to the vaccine’s clinical performance, this hold raises some financial concerns that investors need to be aware of, according to a report on The Motley Fool. It said Inovio is burning through roughly $12 million each quarter. While the company had more than $134 million in cash on its balance sheet as of the end of June, this delay increases the risk that it will have to raise additional capital through a secondary offering to keep its doors open.
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White House Science and Technology
Office Launches Small Satellite Initiative
ExecutiveGov
The White House’s Office of Science and Technology has introduced a new initiative intended to support the use of small satellites in the government and private sectors for many types of mission requirements.
The White House said it intends for the Harnessing the Small Satellite Revolution initiative to collaborate with NASA, Defense Department, Commerce Department and other federal agencies to identify additional steps to develop smallsat technologies. The goal is to apply small satellites to remote sensing, communications, science and space exploration projects.
NASA will invest up to $25 million to purchase data from non-governmental small spacecraft constellations and $5 million to mature small spacecraft constellation technologies.
The space agency also plans to open a Small Spacecraft Virtual Institute at Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley in 2017 to provide technical knowledge in small spacecraft technology fields.
For its part, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarded a $20 million contract to startup firm Planet to develop a constellation of imagery smallsats in low earth orbit in an effort to acquire imagery of at least 85 percent of the Earth’s landmass.
The Commerce Department has also mandated the director of the Office of Space Commerce to serve as ombudsman for the commercial space industry within the federal government.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has also released satellite data sets to help analyze overhead imagery as part of the Multi-View Stereo 3D Mapping Challenge under the initiative.
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UC San Diego School of Medicine Awarded
$5 Million for Type 1 Diabetes Research
UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers have received $5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to find the mechanisms that contribute to the onset of type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that destroys insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreas.
Two research teams are tackling the condition from different angles. Leading one effort are Maike Sander, professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and Kelly Frazer, professor in the Department of Pediatrics, who have brought together investigators in human genome sciences, type 1 diabetes biology and human pluripotent stem cells. They received a $3.3 million grant.
Neal Devaraj, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was awarded a $1.9 million innovator award to develop imaging methods to measure beta cell numbers in the pancreas. Molecular imaging tools are needed to monitor the progression of type 1 diabetes, the effectiveness of treatment and to track the viability of transplanted cells.
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Illumina, Q2 Solutions to Collaborate
On Companion Diagnostics Development
GenomeWeb
Q2 Solutions, a clinical trials laboratory services organization, has established a collaboration framework with San Diego-based Illumina for companion diagnostics development.
Under the terms of the agreement, Q2 Solutions will use Illumina’s MiSeqDx instrument, which has U.S. Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance, to develop next-generation sequencing-based companion diagnostics.
In an email to GenomeWeb, a company spokesman said the collaboration would also support the drug development programs of Q2 Solutions’ sponsors, adding that the agreement with Illumina enables the company to develop, manufacture, distribute, and commercialize cleared or approved IVD kits, or companion diagnostics, in addition to its customary clinical trial work.
Q2 Solutions is a clinical trials laboratory organization that was launched in 2015 as a joint venture by Quest Diagnostics and contract research organization Quintiles.
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UC San Diego Establishes
Partnership with India’s Tata Trusts
The University of California San Diego announced its collaboration with the India-based philanthropic organization Tata Trusts to establish the Tata Institute for Active Genetics and Society, a partnership between the university and research operations in India.
A complementary unit will support a collaborative research enterprise in India (TIAGS-India). The goal of the institute is to push the boundaries of bioscience in support of human needs and society, and to build scientific capacity in India. The institute will specifically advance global science and technology research to ultimately find solutions to address some of the world’s most pressing issues, ranging from health care to agriculture.
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Rhône to Acquire Zodiac
and its Global Pool Business
The Carlyle Group has accepted an offer from investment funds affiliated with Rhône to acquire Zodiac Pool Solutions SAS and its global residential pool and spa business, including its family of premium brands and all 1,300 employees worldwide, the companies announced. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The transaction, subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close promptly.
With its global headquarters in Paris, France and operational headquarters in Vista, Zodiac is a global manufacturer of residential pool equipment and automation solutions. The acquisition will include the Zodiac leadership team and its portfolio including Zodiac Pool, Jandy Pro Series, Polaris, iAquaLink, Cover-Pools, MagnaPool, Caretaker, SAVI and Nature2.
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UCSD Awarded $1.4 Million Grant
To Find Ways to Combat Cyber Attacks
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has awarded $1.4 million to the University of California San Diego to develop new capabilities to better enable cyber security researchers to measure the Internet’s vulnerabilities to cyber attacks.
The award is part of S&T’s Cyber Security Division’s larger Internet Measurement and Attack Modeling project that works with researchers in academia and the cybersecurity community to develop solutions in the areas of resilient systems, modeling of Internet attacks and network mapping and measurement.
“The UC San Diego project focuses on unexplored areas of the cybersecurity domain that will give the research community a fuller understanding of infrastructure vulnerabilities and of new approaches for measuring and analyzing critical cyber infrastructure that is tied to the Internet,” said S&T Cyber Security Director Douglas Maughan.
The IMAM project is aligned with the 2016 Federal Cyber Security Research and Development strategic initiatives to develop realistic experimental data that emulates external adversary activities and defensive behavior. It is also aligned with the S&T Strategic Plan’s goals for the Cyber Security Division, specifically the goal to develop new tools and techniques for mapping several layers of the Internet to detect and mitigate malicious behavior.
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Navy Moving USS Bonhomme Richard
to San Diego in Pacific Pivot
Times of San Diego
The Navy announced Monday it will move the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard to San Diego as it relocates forces to focus on the Pacific region.
The Bonhomme Richard, currently forward deployed to Japan, will be replaced there by the USS Wasp, which is relocating from Norfolk. As a result, one more more amphibious assault ship will be based in the Pacific theater.
The Wasp has been modernized to support the new F-35B Joint Strike Figher, and will host the first squadron of those Marine stealth jets in Japan.
The Bonhomme Richard, which is named for John Paul Jones’ famous Revolutionary War frigate, will be modernized while in San Diego.
The moves will take place in 2017, with specific timelines announced closer to the actual movement of the ships.
Amphibious assault ships are small aircraft carriers that support helicopters, vertical takeoff jets and tiltrotor aircraft. They lead amphibious groups carrying combat-ready Marines.
