Our Mission
We inspire, educate and connect emerging scientists and entrepreneurs
to grow and diversify biotech in LA.
Why?
Los Angeles is home to renowned universities and research institutes producing top talents and exciting innovations. We are passionate about making our city a major biotech hub!
Who?
Biotech Connection Los Angeles (BCLA) is a project of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Community Partners. We are an organization run by academics and biotech professionals from all over Los Angeles.
What?
We bring academia and the biotech industry together to drive innovation forward. Our events are carefully designed to educate, connect, and inspire:
- Academic researchers including students, postdocs, and faculty
- Industry and medical professionals
- K-12 students interested in STEM
- Patients and patient advocates
- People with an entrepreneurial mindset
Believe in our mission?
If you are interested in fostering early-stage entrepreneurship, retaining local talent, or just want to know more about what we do, subscribe to our newsletter, come to our events or donate to our cause. Let’s build a vibrant LA biotech community together!
Our Achievements
Since our inception in 2014:
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70+ events organized
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1400+ attendees in 2019
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5000+ total subscribers to our mailing list
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100+ speakers, panelists & mentors
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100+ industries & institutions represented
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Collaborations with key players in the LA Biotechnology & Entrepreneurship industry: LabLaunch, CNSI, Biocom, LA Mayor's office, ScaleLA, LABioscience Hub, LA Biomed, BioLabs, and the Bridge Institute
Community Partners, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, offers fiscal sponsorship and a range of other services to help foster, launch, and grow creative solutions to community challenges. For more than 20 years, hundreds of individuals, groups, foundations and other institutions have worked with Community Partners to create new nonprofit projects, establish coalitions, and manage major philanthropic initiatives to benefit the region. BCLA is one of 150-plus social good projects powered by Community Partners’ fiscal sponsorship services. As our fiscal sponsor, Community Partners provides us with the benefits of tax-exempt status, offers expert guidance and a range of back-office services that help keep us focused on our mission. Learn more at www.CommunityPartners.org
We're a part of Community Partners
What people say
Last night was the most genuinely productive mixer I have attended in quite a while
GREG CAUCHON
Ventura Biocenter Director
Amethyst Life Sciences
The meeting [...] definitely helps to propel us along the route to creating a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem of biotech startups that will provide jobs and leadership opportunities for your members! I look forward to collaborating again
soon!
For an early stage start-up like ourselves, we couldn't have asked for a better friend and partner than BCLA! Through their connections we met investors, attended and presented at conferences, met collaborators and even hired our first employee! This one connection radically changed the speed at which we were able to assimilate into the LA biotech community, and Basepaws continues to benefit from the connection with other locals in our space whom we met at BCLA events.
ANNA SKAYA
CEO
Basepaws
LATIFAH AUDRA SAFIEI
President
WiSTEM
Working with Raquel and BCLA was an expansive experience. I appreciate the BCLA team’s dedication to providing engaging events and resources where students and industry professionals can connect.
I personally felt very welcomed at each event, regardless of my compared inferior educational status. I have networked and connected with CEO’s, PI’s and lab associates that I wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to engage.
ALEX KOPELYAN
Senior Director & Partner
IndieBio
BCLA has been a great organization for IndieBio to work with to accelerate biotech innovation and entrepreneurship. We worked with multiple startups as a result of collaborating with BCLA, and have been witness to their important part in boosting the LA biotech ecosystem.
WENDIE JOHNSTON
Lab Director
Pasadena Bioscience
Collaborative
Biotechnology Entrepreneurship Coalition
The Biotech Entrepreneurship Coalition was created to increase entrepreneurship education for life scientists in the Los Angeles area. The coalition is composed of organizations that value this mission and are committed to spreading the message that scientists can be entrepreneurs. The BEC fulfills its mission by organizing educational events, creating resources, and searching for new ways to help scientists become entrepreneurs here in LA. The BEC is led by BCLA and Lab Launch Inc. and includes CLSA, Biocom, LA Bioscience Hub, The City of Los Angeles, and LAEDC.
Email marie@lablaunch.org for more information.