By Viola Lee, Yale Daily News Staff Reporter

Thirty years ago, the idea of starting a biotech venture in Connecticut was rare, if not unheard of. The obvious biotech hotbeds in the United States were in Boston and South San Francisco — famously dubbed “Genetown” and “Biotech Bay” among industry professionals and job seekers.

But in recent years, that perception has changed — now, the thriving biotech ecosystem in New Haven has completely saturated available biotech lab spaces.

Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research, or OCR, helps Yale faculty commercialize their research and put their technology on the market. With the combined efforts of Yale faculty, OCR, design firms and venture capitalists in Connecticut, 40 to 50 new biotech ventures have emerged in the New Haven area in the past 10 years.

“I remember when we first got here in 1996, Yale was trying to get three to four venture-backed biotech startups per year, and people thought we were crazy, because there wasn’t that level of activity at the time,” said Jonathan Soderstrom, managing director of the OCR. “We actually averaged over three or four per year, and gradually reached about ten a year.”

In his 23-year tenure with the OCR, Soderstrom has facilitated the rapid development of the biotech startup landscape in New Haven. During this time, prominent companies like Arvinas and Alexion — both publicly listed on the NASDAQ — and Biohaven, a publicly traded firm on the New York Stock Exchange, emerged in the Elm City.

Read the full article here in Yale Daily News.