Mission Bay Life Science Campus

Alexandria Real Estate Equities has just secured the first tenant for the 2.1 million square foot Mission Bay life science campus the firm plans to complete by 2013.

Sirna Therapeutics is moving its headquarters to 1700 Owens St., the first building Alexandria is constructing. The 155,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed later this year, and Sirna will occupy nearly 40,000 square feet. Sirna focuses on developing therapeutics for a wide range of diseases using RNA interference technology.

Alexandria plans to sign up a life science cluster of tenants within the building — including venture capital firms with a focus on biotechnology, other R&D-focused companies, and academic research programs. The complex abuts two important nonprofit research centers: the David Gladstone Institute and the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research.

Electronic Records Transform Healthcare

Electronic health records and health-information technology are poised to transform healthcare, forecasts Jo Ellen H. Ross, CEO of San Francisco-based consulting firm Lumetra. Specifically:

Pay for Performance. Effective treatment and preventative care will be measured, and doctors will be rewarded for achieving patient satisfaction and making effective use of computer technology. Local IT firms Cisco Systems, Intel and Oracle all offer financial incentives to doctors who adopt health-information technology as a means to deliver safer and higher quality care.

Health Information Technology. The same type of IT that allows us to bank online, check inventory, track the delivery of shipped packages and file taxes electronically is often absent in health-care delivery. Our paper-dominated medical record system is highly vulnerable — not to mention expensive and time-consuming to maintain.

Health-care Information Exchanges. The California Regional Health Information Organization (CalRHIO) — a nonprofit collaborative of California health-care providers, payers, government and consumer organizations — is leading the effort in California to build a highly secure network that can electronically move data when and where patients and their doctors need it.

Doctor Guides Google Charity

Google has tapped Dr. Larry Brilliant, a man with deep roots both in technology and altruism, to serve as executive director Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, which has an initial war chest of $1 billion.

Dr. Brilliant’s résumé shows that he spent as much time in nonprofit public health services as he has directing technology companies in Silicon Valley, where he currently resides. He spent a decade in India in the 1970s heading an effort to arrest the spread of smallpox in that country. In 1978 he founded Seva Foundation, an organization committed to the sharing of Western technology and skills with the developing world.  

The Medical Spa Buzz

Healthcare industry experts, medical ethicists and traditional cosmetic surgeons are all watching the fastest growing trend in the spa industry. There are now an estimated 1,250 medical spas in cities across the nation, offering treatments ranging from the common massage to ultrasound facials and Botox injections. Family practitioners, eye doctors, and gynecologists are augmenting their practices with spa services or starting new medical spas.

On San Francisco’s Union Street, two medical spas — SKN Medical Spa and the Union Street Medspa — offer a variety of cosmetic and anti-aging skin treatments. SKN Medical Spa founder Dr. Robert Colvin, formerly an emergency room specialist, says he finds his new enterprise more satisfying because he can more easily see results. His business offers Botox, laser skin rejuvenation, hair removal and skin peels. He performs all the treatments himself, spending far more time with patients than he did in the ER.

California requires that medical spas be owned by doctors. Cosmeticians may not hire doctors to run the spas or share profits with them, but can rent out space to doctors who perform treatments themselves and charge their own fees.

Health Search Engine Launches

San Francisco based Healthline has launched the first search engine which focuses exclusively on the health care domain.

The Healthline search engine interprets everyday words used by searchers and matches them with medical terminology so that users can burrow down to the information they need. It draws upon a database of more than 800,000 medical terms and synonyms. Already, the engine has indexed 62,000 health web sites (40 million pages) and partnered with the leading proprietary medical databases.