The biotech industry is strong in Northern California and described as "....a burgeoning industry born in the Bay Area, is often cast as the savior that will help replace the hundreds of thousands of jobs..." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/18/MNGBM672L01.DTL

The industry was built upon the Nobel prize winning work Watson and Crick on the DNA (the double helix) in the 1950’s, then further upon the work of Cohen and Boyer on recombinant DNA (gene splicing) in the 1970’s. http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/Biotech/cartoon.html

Modern Biotechnology focuses on the metabolic pathways related to a disease state or pathogen, and manipulating these pathways using molecular biology or Biochemistry.

"In 1976, Genentech Inc. [founded by Boyer and Swanson] had become the first venture to combine bioscience and business, establishing the Bay Area as the world's biotech leader. Biogen Inc., the first biotech company on the East Coast, didn't open up shop in Cambridge, Mass., until two years later." http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2001/03/05/story1.html

Genentech (1980) and Amgen (1985) were early clients of Douglas White at another firm. After founding WHL, Douglas followed more startup and emerging companies as they were incubated from Genentech and other companies. An example of which is WHL account with Tularik – and the development of that company is described at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/Biotech/entre.html

Now, the industry has matured, and come full circle. There are nearly 820 “life science” companies now in the Northern California region, alone. Tularik, the close spinoff industry from Genentech, was purchased by Amgen in 2004 (March 29, 2004, Amgen acquired Tularik for $1.3 Billion). Numerous "biotechnology” companies are pursuing approvals from the FDA and EU for therapeutics in the same fashion as "pharmaceutical" companies similarly do – see pharmaceutical.

WHL continues to provide architecture, interior design, and project management for all manor of companies in biotech Northern California and throughout the US, whether incubating, emerging, in IPO, in clinical trials, or as stock corporations.