High-Tech Firm Traces Roots to UCI Research

On one level, today’s open house at American Biogenetics Corp. might be viewed as an event heralding the beginning of yet another high-technology company in the high-tech mecca of Irvine.

But beyond the obligatory slide show, business hype, and wine and cheese reception lies another view, one with potent long-range implications for Orange County’s biotechnology business community and UC Irvine, the county’s most prestigious college campus.

For after years of talk about forging commercial ties between the red-hot biotech industry and the campus’s more staid research labs, American Biogenetics represents the first major corporation that can trace its roots to the university’s biotechnology laboratories, according to campus and company officials.

American Biogenetics, which uses genetic engineering to produce specialty chemicals for industry, was founded by UCI researchers anxious to develop commercial applications in the fast-growing genetic engineering field.

However, G. Wesley Hatfield, company vice president and director of UCI’s Gene Research and Biotechnology Program, said the formal relationship between the company and the campus ends there. “There are no formal business links between the two entities,” he said.

Among the company’s principal backers is Richard O’Neill, the Rancho Mission Viejo real estate developer. O’Neill provided substantial financing for the new company and serves as its chairman, according to Dane Hoiberg, American Biogenetics’ president and chief executive, who was a vice chancellor at UCI until 1982.

Although American Biogenetics is the first commercial venture to be spawned from the university’s laboratories, it does not represent the first link between corporate America and the campus.

In fact, in recent years, UCI has gradually lured business to the campus and has actively sought support from big business for campus research projects with potential commercial applications as a way to bolster the school’s research programs and the county’s economy.

“We’re definitely supportive of building ties between the university and business,” said David Schetter, assistant dean for graduate studies and research.