Cytovia Moving to San Diego for Its Workers, Labs

Cytovia Inc. is going south.

The tiny spinoff of Irvine-based CoCensys Inc. is moving its headquarters in October to San Diego, the capital of Southern California’s biotech business.

Cytovia, formed this year, leases space from its parent in Irvine and wouldn’t have minded staying in Orange County. But San Diego beckoned, with its accommodating landlords and rich work force of scientists, said Eckard Weber, Cytovia’s chief executive.

The company needed costly lab space for screening and developing compounds that could be used to treat cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and other ailments. All told, that meant investing about $1 million in lab benches, plumbing, gas lines, fume hoods and clean rooms.

Orange County has little available lab space or vacant land--and landlords with vacant buildings insisted Cytovia pay for equipping any new laboratory, he said. Orange County “landlords don’t know how to deal with biotech tenants,” Weber said, echoing frustrations raised by other local biotech executives.

In contrast, he said, Cytovia’s new landlord in San Diego offered to pay $1.6 million to equip a new 20,000-square-foot building.

Add to that the labor situation. Cytovia, which employs 17 people, most of them scientists, expects its work force to grow to 45 or 50 in two years.

Last spring, the company placed identical classified ads in Orange County and San Diego newspapers to fill three new posts for scientists. The result? Three people responded in Orange County. The company received 60 responses in San Diego.

Weber attributed San Diego’s plethora of molecular biologists, cell biologists, pharmacologists and the like to the fact that the area is home to more than 200 biotech outfits, while Orange County has but a handful.

Weber, 48, has bought a home near his new office. A former CoCensys executive, he recently sold a sizable chunk of his CoCensys stock to buy the home, he said.

Barbara Marsh covers health care for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com.