Bay Area's Booming CS Bio Submits Plans for New Complex to Triple the Size of Its Workforce
July 14, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SAN FRANCISCO – CS Bio, based in Menlo Park, Calif., is looking to continue its growth spurt by tripling the number of its employees over the next four years.
The peptide synthesizing company is seeking approval from Menlo Park officials to expand its current six-building facility. The Mercury News reported the company is looking to build an eight-story office complex that will accommodate its planned employment growth. But the company’s proposal isn’t for a building without character or amenities. In its proposed plans, CS Bio’s expansion would include a café, an 18,419-square-foot food court, an open-air garden and beer garden on the roof, the Mercury News said. The café would also have outside seating for patrons to use. The new building would have approximately 55,000 square feet of offices on four upper floors. Additional spaces for parking would be created.
Jason Chang, CS Bio’s chief operating officer, told the Mercury News the idea for the amenities such as the beer garden was to “create a venue where people could socialize.”
It was not clear when CS Bio intends to begin the bulk of its hiring for the expansion. The company’s career portal on its website lists several open positions, including chemists and validation engineers.
Founded in 1993, CS Bio manufactures peptide synthesizers and custom peptides for the life sciences community. One of its largest customers is Intarcia, a company awaiting regulatory approval for its matchstick-sized diabetes therapeutic platform, ITCA-650. CS Bio’s lab produces both custom peptides for research and development and cGMP grade peptides for toxicology and clinical studies, according to the company website.
In 2015, CS Bio completed a facilities expansion that allowed the company to grow to its current size of about 100 employees. When that expansion was completed, BioSpace reported that the CS Bio facility included a 35,000 square-foot cGMP manufacturing facility devoted to production of high-quality peptides. The space also included Class 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 clean rooms, as well as office and conference spaces.
Not only is CS Bio looking to expand its physical footprint, the additional space would also assist company officials in community outreach projects. Chang said he hopes the facility will include a learning center aimed at bolstering mathematics education. He also plans for two basketball courts aimed for students between grades three and 12. The courts would allow students who excel in math to form a league and play. The mathlete project would coincide with work Chang does through the Golden State Warriors Community Foundation, the Mercury News said.
CS Bio will take its proposed expansion before city leaders later this month, the Mercury News said.