Calif. biotech firm moves to Sioux Falls

Company makes diagnostic tests

A biotechnology company that relocated to Sioux Falls from California has settled into a laboratory here and has plans to grow.

AlphaGenix, which develops diagnostic and other tests for sale to research laboratories, moved to Sioux Falls from Carlsbad, Calif., earlier this year.

It was a move that state and local economic development leaders hope to see more of in coming years. Building a strong biotechnology and research infrastructure in South Dakota is a major element in Gov. Mike Rounds' 2010 initiatives.

"With all the developments within our facility and in this community and region, I think the momentum's only going to build," said Rich Naser, executive director of the South Dakota Technology Business Center, the business incubator in Sioux Falls in which AlphaGenix now resides.

For AlphaGenix, the prohibitive costs of doing business in California outweighed the advantages of southern California's cluster of biotechnology research firms and companies, said AlphaGenix founder and president Stephen Hall.

"It's expensive to set up and operate a lab, even the minimum infrastructure needed for a lab," said Hall, who started several other biotech businesses in California after working at the famed Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. "The cost of running a small business is five to six times more expensive there."

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