Daily Business Report: July 7, 2023
Meriwether Companies acquires
200-acre Morgan Run Club & Resort
Meriwether Companies, a private real estate investment and development firm, has acquired the 200-acre Morgan Run Club & Resort in Rancho Santa Fe, one of Southern California’s most affluent communities. The resort and private club is set amid majestic hills and enjoys near-perfect year-round weather along with a prime location just five miles from the Pacific Ocean and Del Mar Racetrack.
Meriwether Companies will invest more than $25 million in a renovation to enhance and reimagine the property, including its racquet sports, golf, dining and hotel components. Design and planning are already underway, and the work will be completed over the next two to three years with minimal disruption to member enjoyment of the property.
Among its amenities, Morgan Run comprises a 27-hole championship golf course featuring its East, North and South course layouts, 320-yard driving range, short game practice facilities, 10 tennis hard courts, four pickleball courts, heated outdoor swimming pool, fitness facility and recreational programming and events. The resort also features a restaurant with indoor/outdoor dining, 17,000 square feet of private event space and 76 hotel rooms.
Photo: Morgan Run Club & Resort in Rancho Santa Fe.
New genetic technology developed
to halt malaria-spreading mosquitoes
By Mario Aguilera | UC San Diego
Scientists are developing safe technologies to stop the transmission of malaria by genetically editing mosquitoes that spread the parasite that causes the disease. Researchers at the University of California San Diego led by Professor Omar Akbari’s laboratory have engineered a new way to genetically suppress populations of Anopheles gambiae, the mosquitoes that primarily spread malaria in Africa and contribute to economic poverty in affected regions. The new system targets and kills females of the A. gambiae population since they bite and spread the disease.
Published July 5 in the journal Science Advances, first-author Andrea Smidler, a postdoctoral scholar in the UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences, along with former master’s students and co-first authors James Pai and Reema Apte, created a system called Ifegenia, an acronym for “inherited female elimination by genetically encoded nucleases to interrupt alleles.” The technique leverages the CRISPR technology to disrupt a gene known as femaleless (fle) that controls sexual development in A. gambiae mosquitoes.
Why California’s housing crisis threatens
its powerful coastal commission
By Ben Christopher | CalMatters
Legislation by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener would fast-track apartment development in parts of the state that haven’t met their state-set housing goals, exempting them from lengthy public hearings and environmental legal challenges. The coast is no exception, effectively cutting the California Coastal Commission out of the process.
Commission members, staff and environmental advocates say the bill may be the most direct assault yet at the Coastal Commission’s voter-backed mandate.
“Once you start exempting classes of development from the Coastal Act there will be no shutting that barn door,” said Sarah Christie, a lobbyist for the commission. “You’re going to lose some of the best things about California.”
Bankrupt Jenny Craig diet
company gets a new owner
Jenny Craig, the Carlsbad weight loss company that closed its doors more than two months ago, will soon be revived exclusively as an e-commerce business, its new owners announced on Wednesday.
Wellful, a direct-to-consumer health and wellness platform that also owns the well-known Nutrisystem, said that it expects to bring Jenny Craig back in the fall, minus the hundreds of storefront locations across the United States and Canada where customers could come for personal weight loss coaching. Jenny Craig’s pre-packaged meals, though, will still be a part of the brand’s weight loss equation under the new ownership.
County of San Diego hires chief dental officer
The County of San Diego has a new Chief Dental Officer, Fadra M. Whyte, DMD, who has joined to help develop policies and expand programs that promote oral health to all San Diegans.
Whyte has worked as a board-certified pediatric dentist at San Ysidro Health for the past 10 years.
She is faculty for the NYU Langone Pediatric Dental Residency Program co-located on Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego campus, mainly treating children with special health care needs.
Whyte earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, and her doctorate of dental medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She went on then complete a two-year residency in pediatric dentistry in Brooklyn, NY and a master’s degree in public health from A.T. Still University.
She worked as a pediatric dentist in New York City prior to moving to San Diego.
A two-for-one approach to boost
melanoma immunotherapy
New research from Sanford Burnham Prebys has helped explain how melanoma evades the immune system and may guide the discovery of future therapies for the disease. The study found that a protein known to be active in immune cells is also active inside melanoma cells, helping promote tumor growth. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances,
suggest that targeting this protein with new drugs may deliver a powerful double hit to melanoma tumors.
“The immune system’s control of a tumor is influenced by both internal factors within tumor cells, as well as factors from the tumor’s surroundings,” says first author Hyungsoo Kim,
a research assistant professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys in the lab of senior author Ze’ev Ronai. “We found that the protein we’re studying is involved in both, which makes it an ideal target for new cancer therapies.”
Allison Whitmore promoted
to partner at Withers law firm
SAN DIEGO — International law firm Withers has promoted Allison Whitmore to partner in its San Diego office.
Whitmore works with families in California on estate planning, estate and trust administration, estate and gift taxation, business succession planning and charitable giving. Allison also advises fiduciaries and beneficiaries on complex estate and trust administration matters.
She works with high net worth individuals and families to implement sophisticated wealth transfer strategies, including the creation of intentionally defective grantor trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, annual exclusion gift trusts and irrevocable life insurance trusts, among others.
Tanya Schierling named managing
partner at Solomon Ward law firm
SAN DIEGO — Tanya Schierling has been named managing partner at Solomon Ward Seidenwurm & Smith LLP law firm in San Diego.
Schierling has been practicing law for more than 25 years, including 20 years with Solomon Ward, holding various leadership roles including serving four years as Litigation Department chair.
Schierling’s expertise includes extensive litigation and transactional experience handling domestic and international distribution and franchising, a broad spectrum of business litigation, including partnership, corporate and real estate disputes and employment counseling and litigation including labor code, wage, discrimination and harassment claims and investigations.
Katherine Baker promoted to
partner at Bespoke Partners
Katherine Baker has been promoted to partner at Bespoke Partners, one of the largest retained executive search and leadership advisory service firm for software companies.
Baker has been with the firm for six years, serving most recently as senior vice president in the CEO practice, working with top private equity firms to recruit accomplished CEOs to their portfolio companies.
In her new role Baker is working in concert with Bespoke’s founder Kristie Nova to solidify Bespoke’s position as a leader for CEO searches in software at scale.
Bespoke specializes in recruiting executives for private equity backed software and SaaS companies.
During her tenure at Bespoke, Baker has personally achieved dozens of senior executive placements for firms, including Francisco Partners, WCAS, Insight Partners, Clearlake Capital and many more.
San Diego Foundation awards $5.6 million
in grants to 43 community organizations
San Diego Foundation, in partnership with the County of San Diego, announced it has awarded $5,563,500 in grants to 43 community-based organizations to help San Diegans experiencing food insecurity by supporting localized, sustainable food production and distribution throughout the region. The 43 projects selected represent a wide breadth of nonprofit organizations in San Diego County, from grassroots, volunteer-led efforts to established countywide institutions. These projects provide regional and population-specific services to food-insecure seniors, students, Tribal communities, unsheltered, and refugee and immigrant residents of San Diego County.
HCAP Partners invests in PACIV
SAN DIEGO — HCAP Partners, a private equity firm and nationally recognized impact investor, announced its recent investment in PACIV, a leading full-service provider of industrial automation solutions. The transaction is part of a co-investment with Blackford Capital, who announced their acquisition of PACIV earlier this month. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. The capital infusion will support PACIV’s expansion plans, enabling the company to accelerate its growth and enhance its service offerings.
Dexcom G7 receives Health Canada approval
SAN DIEGO —San Diego-based Dexcom Inc., a global leader in real-time continuous glucose monitoring for people with diabetes, announced that Health Canada has approved the next-generation Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitoring System for people with all types of diabetes, ages two years and older. While approved by Health Canada, Dexcom G7 is not yet available for purchase. Dexcom Canada is working to bring Dexcom G7 to Canadians living with diabetes by the end of 2023.
Toragen announces initiation of
clinical trial of its first drug candidate
SAN DIEGO — Toragen Inc., a San Diego-based clinical-stage biotechnology company, announced that it has initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate its first drug candidate (TGN-S11). It is believed that HPV survives within the cells and can eventually cause cancer by blocking immune responses and going undetected by the immune system. Toragen’s drug candidate, TGN-S11, inhibits the E5 oncogene of HPV in pre-clinical studies. Toragen believes this will allow the HPV-infected cancer cells to be detected by killer T-cells which could trigger an immune response that could be beneficial in cancer treatment.
Mission Fed Credit Union enters 10-year
partnership with the San Diego Symphony
SAN DIEGO — Mission Fed Credit Union announced a 10-year partnership with the San Diego Symphony, the largest of its kind in the credit union’s 62-year history. Mission Fed becomes the official Credit Union of the San Diego Symphony. The Symphony has also established the Mission Fed Community Green at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. The unveiling of this space took place in a private reception prior to the 2023 Conrad Prebys Summer Season’s Opening Night Concert on June 30, 2023.
Quick Custom Intelligence adds
15 Australian hotel venues
SAN DIEGO — Quick Custom Intelligence (QCI), a world leader in data integration solutions, announced a significant deal with a prominent hotel group with over 15 venues, brokered through its Australian distributor, Gaming Dynamics. This agreement further cements QCI’s reputation as a global leader in the slots tooling industry. This collaboration strengthens QCI’s position in the Australasian market, reflecting its increasing global expansion and consistent reputation for delivering superior solutions. Gaming Dynamics is a Australian distributor of gaming technology.
San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy
plans 14th annual River Valley Fest
RANCHO SANTA FE — The San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy announces its 14th annual River Valley Fest on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023, to be held at the Morgan Run Club & Resort in Rancho Santa Fe. This year’s theme is “Wings of Migration,” highlighting the journey of birds as they migrate across the globe and recognizing the San Dieguito River Park’s importance as part of the Pacific Flyway. The park provides crucial habitat and resources for numerous avian species during their annual journeys. The fundraising goal is $120,000.
