SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The coronavirus outbreak continues to be no match for San Diego's biotech industry, which is continuing to add jobs at an impressive clip.
This month, Bay Area-based Guardant Health announced it would be opening a new space in San Diego's Torrey Pines area, adding 112 new positions. The company, which develops blood tests for cancer diagnoses, is expanding in San Diego to tap into the talent of its growing biotech industry, as well as graduates of UC San Diego.
"We're hiring, frankly, at a frenzied pace and to be able to get that concentration of talent, there is only a few places across the United States that have that," chief executive Helmy Eltoukhy said in an interview.
The office is set to open in March, with space for research and development, laboratory, and patient testing. Guardant is currently working on a product for early cancer detection in the blood, with a goal of helping patients avoid invasive biopsies to uncover key details of cancerous tumors.
The 112 new jobs will add to the industries growth in San Diego County. Despite the pandemic's impact on the local economy, jobs in San Diego's scientific research and development field have grown by 7.4% in the last year, to 39,400 workers.
Additionally, an investment group announced in September that it is building a massive waterfront biotech hub on downtown's waterfront that it hopes to attract even more companies to grow locally.
Guardant says it will be hiring laboratory workers at all levels, bioinformatics professionals and software engineers. It also plans to open positions in quality, regulatory affairs, marketing, and business development.
