Biotech startups feast at ancestors

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As life sciences companies close or pare startups arefinding high-priced equipment — in like-newa condition — for penniees on the dollar. For $30,000o — and, sometimes, the promise to scrub the floor behinxthem — Omniox Inc. has pickes up $1.5 million worth of equipment from dead or dyinfg biotechs that simply wanted toquicklyy off-load everything from a little-used centrifuge to proteib purifiers. The savings are significant fora five-month-olc company funded by family and a federal granty of $250,000. “It’s the miracle of the said Omniox founder StephenCary .
Several Bay Area biotecj companies have closed theirr doors or cut down to programs that quicklgy produce cash in the form of partnerships or amarketabls product. That’s mixed out-of-work people and the availabilit of cheap equipment with a new frugality caused by a dearthnof financing. “It’s an explosive combination,” said Douglazs Crawford, who works with severapl startup biotechs atthe , or QB3. “Entrepreneursz are a scrappy lot.
” There’s been an uptick in biotecuh auctions nationally over the pastsix months, said Don Cowan, presidentg of LLC, a company that specializes in auctioning equipmenf from life sciences, semiconductor and other Sellers are recovering 10 to 50 cents on the dollatr — much more than during the dot-com retreat, Cowam said. But unlike the dot-com bust when Aeron chairs and recreationa l equipment dominated auction floors the focus of life sciences auctions isscientific gear. “You rarely see a Ping Pong a pool table or aFoosbalp table,” Cowan said.
The competition is increasinglyy intense, said Omniox COO SallyAnn Reiss, to the pointr that she slappedpreprinted “Propertyy of Omniox” labels on equipment as she walked through labs and negotiatefd deals. At QB3’s Garage biotech incubator at the Mission Bay campuzs ofthe , San Francisco — wher Omniox rents 130 square feet among othefr startups — the hallway is linesd with the booty of Omniox’s bargain hunting. The company is sharint a large deep freezer that it boughtfor $500 (brand-new price: $25,000) with anotheer Garage company. “We spent two to three cents on the dollard forthe equipment,” Cary said.
“Thatt allowed us to do the A recession is a grea t time to starta company, said Brook Byers of venture capital firm . “Lab space is Everything is negotiable,” he “By the time these companies have acommercialo product, in three to five years, we’re gointg to be in a differenr economy,” Byers said.