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State of the Life Sciences Market

Deep Diving into the Talent, Resources, and Community of a National Leader

Geoffrey Sears

Geoffrey Sears

Partner

Wareham Development

Michelle Nemits

Michelle Nemits

Executive Director, Bay Area

Biocom

Valentin Doering

Valentin Doering

Director, Project Engineering and Real Estate

Astellas Gene Therapies

Deepa Balgi

Deepa Balgi

S&T Principal

HGA

Jeff Brink

Jeff Brink

Principal and CEO

DCI Engineers

Tom Thuman
Moderator

Tom Thuman

Senior Project Manager

Rossi Builders

Geoffrey Sears

Partner

Wareham Development

Wareham Development is committed to the long-term economic and environmental vitality of our communities. We work closely with city and state agencies to ensure that each project provides maximum benefit to its surrounding community. Unlike many developers who build projects only to sell, we retain ownership of the majority of our developments, many of which have defined the thriving technology corridor between the Bay and Richmond-San Rafael bridges.

Michelle Nemits

Executive Director, Bay Area

Biocom

As Executive Director of Biocom’s South San Francisco office, Michelle is responsible for building the framework for enabling the creation of a strong, well-connected life science community in the Bay Area. She leads Biocom’s programming and benefits efforts and helps raise awareness of the region’s innovations and accomplishments.

Michelle has spent over 20 years in Bay Area life science sales, marketing and business development. She has held leadership roles at a large lab supply distributor and at a biotech tools startup, which fostered her broad view of the Bay Area market, its challenges and its opportunities.

Valentin Doering

Director, Project Engineering and Real Estate

Astellas Gene Therapies

Valentin Doering is a life sciences project execution professional with over 20 years of experience, managing projects in Europe, Asia, and the US. As the Director of Project Engineering & Real Estate, he oversees Astellas Gene Therapies Real Estate Portfolio and ongoing Projects.

Jeff Brink

Principal and CEO

DCI Engineers

Jeff Brink has over 20 years of structural design experience with significant developments up and down the west coast, ranging from Performance Based Design high-rises to mixed-use projects at Candlestick Point, the SF Shipyard, and Yerba Buena Island. Current projects include the City of San Francisco’s new office tower at 1500 Mission Street and the Virgin Hotel adjacent to the Moscone Center. Jeff’s technical expertise at integrating innovative structural systems, combined with his broad understanding of the construction industry, allows architecturally decisive projects to be achieved while still maintaining the project budget.

Keystone Construction and Developments

Highlighting Major NorCal Projects including Multi-Building Campuses and Tech Towers of the Future

Gregg Walker

Gregg Walker

President

DivcoWest Real Estate Asset Management

Brandon Wang

Brandon Wang

EVP

Lincoln Property Company

Steven Golubchik

Steven Golubchik

Executive Vice Chairman & President, Western Region

Newmark

Rob Zirkle

Rob Zirkle

Founder & CEO

brick.

James Tefend

James Tefend

Partner

Form4 Architecture

Tony Natsis
Moderator

Tony Natsis

Partner

Allen Matkins

Gregg Walker

President

DivcoWest Real Estate Asset Management

Gregg Walker is responsible for overseeing DivcoWest’s asset management group, which includes managing the leasing strategy throughout the U.S. for all DivcoWest Clients. Gregg works closely with the CEO on developing new strategic relationships across the country. In addition, Gregg is a member of DivcoWest’s Investment and Executive Committees.

Before joining DivcoWest in 2019, Gregg worked as a leasing broker for over 19 years, most recently as a Managing Director for JLL in Silicon Valley, with a particular focus on Life Science and Technology companies. He is a member of CoreNet Global and received his Bachelor of Political Science from the University of Oregon.

Steven Golubchik

Executive Vice Chairman & President, Western Region

Newmark

Steven Golubchik is Vice Chairman and Head of Capital Markets with Newmark, and

leads the Office, Industrial and Life Science Capital Markets Practice Group for

Northern California. Previously he was a senior managing director and co-office head

for the San Francisco office of HFF, where he was responsible for managing the growth

of all the capital markets service lines throughout Northern California in conjunction with

overseeing the sale of institutional-grade investment property sales concentrating on

office, industrial and life science assets located throughout the western United States.

Steven has closed more than $25 billion in transactions encompassing more than 50

million square feet throughout the West Coast during his career.

Rob Zirkle

Founder & CEO

brick.

Rob Zirkle is the founding principal of brick. Under his guidance the brick team brings a rigorous, value driven design process to a wide variety of project types in architecture, interiors and urban design. Rob leads the firm’s initiatives in design, client satisfaction, new project acquisition and company culture. Channeling Rob’s entrepreneurial approach, brick has grown into a thriving 25 person team with $450m of current projects under construction ranging from commercial office, life science, housing and higher education.

James Tefend

Partner

Form4 Architecture

James Tefend is a partner at Form4 Architecture in San Francisco, where he also serves as CPO, overseeing project-team leadership and implementation. Tefend has more than 30 years of experience, specializing in comprehensive building-code compliance, planning, site-utilization strategies, construction drawing, and management. Being an advocate of early cooperation with city planning and municipal agencies at the design stage, Tefend’s management approach has expedited successful project entitlements throughout the Bay Area. Tefend designs new buildings as well as adaptive re-use of existing buildings for life-science and tech-industry clients. He holds a BA in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master of Architecture from Georgia Institute of Technology. Tefend is a member of the International Code Council.

Tony Natsis

Moderator

Allen Matkins

A name partner of the firm, Anton N. Natsis is Chair of Allen Matkins’ Real Estate Department and is one of the top real estate attorneys in the United States. His practice focuses on development, leasing, purchase and sale, and portfolio investment sales transactions involving office, retail, and industrial projects, as well as arbitrating numerous fair market value disputes, CAM disputes and other significant landlord/tenant disputes. He also has extensive experience in debt, equity, and joint venture workouts, and the purchase of distressed assets and distressed debt. Tony is continually sought out by some of the largest national land owners, such as J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Blackstone Real Estate, Brookfield Properties, HCP, Vornado Realty Trust, Regent Properties, The Irvine Company, Boston Properties, Equity Office Properties, Kilroy Realty, Inc., Beacon Capital Partners, MPG Office Trust, Kamehameha Schools (The Bishop Estate) and Westfield Corporation. He represents many governmental entities, including the LAUSD, State of California, and City of Anaheim. Tony is also frequently retained as counsel for major national office tenants, such as AT&T, Citicorp, the FDIC, AIG, The Walt Disney Company, and the Los Angeles Times.

A frequent lecturer and author, Tony is the chief consultant for the California Continuing Education of the Bar Commercial Leasing Series, the legal education reference book on leasing for California attorneys, is an adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School for a course covering commercial real estate transactions, and has spoken before such national real estate groups as ULI and BOMA. Tony is a founding board member of The Ziman Real Estate Center, which is governed under the joint auspices of the UCLA Anderson School of Business and the UCLA Law School.

In the past decade, Tony has closed commercial office leases exceeding 50 million square feet. He has worked on real estate purchase contracts with a total consideration of more than $30 billion and on development transactions with a total consideration in excess of $25 billion. Since 2006, Tony has represented clients in office building portfolio investment sales transactions involving over $75 billion of consideration.

One of Tony's most significant transactions is the largest real estate acquisition deal in the history of the United States. He provided extensive real estate services in connection with Blackstone Real Estate's purchase of Equity Office Properties Trust, at that point the largest owner of office space in the U.S. other than the Federal Government, for $43 billion. Subsequently, Blackstone contracted to sell over 50% of the properties it purchased with such sales closing in the first and second quarter of 2007. Tony assisted Blackstone in its acquisition due diligence related to EOP and the subsequent sales of the properties. The transactions related to this deal included Maguire Properties' purchase of Blackstone/EOP in Orange County for $2 billion, Irvine Company's purchase of Blackstone/EOP in San Diego for $1 billion, Morgan Stanley's purchase of Blackstone/EOP in San Francisco for $2.5 billion, and Beacon Capital Partners’ purchase of Blackstone/EOP Seattle for $6.3 billion.

Innovations in Space and Construction

Discussing Incubators to Large Floor Plate Designs: Building Modern Labs and Facilities

Laura Billings

Laura Billings

Principal

srmErnst Development Partners

Gino Segre

Gino Segre

Managing Director

Bakar Labs

Enrique Ceniceros

Enrique Ceniceros

Principal, Project Executive, Science & Technology

Taylor Design

Chris Petteys

Chris Petteys

CEO

Forell/Elsesser Engineers

Ryan McNulty
Moderator

Ryan McNulty

Principal

MBH Architects

Laura Billings

Principal

srmErnst Development Partners

Laura has over 17 years’ experience in all facets of real estate development within the office, industrial and multifamily housing sectors, including acquisitions, due diligence, leasing/marketing, financing, entitlements and project/construction management. Laura formerly served as the Director of Development for a San-Francisco-based development firm, where she completed a 110,000 square-foot two-building industrial facility for the City of San Francisco, earning a City and national award for best private-public partnered project. Other project highlights include the successful entitlement of a 100-unit and a 230-unit condominium project in San Francisco in 2016 with full community support, the design and entitlement of an 86,000sf Class A office building in the Stanford Research Park and an historic renovation of a 40,000sf office suite in the Ferry Building in San Francisco. She previously worked in community development banking and municipal housing bond finance. Laura has a passion for green building and served on the Board of Directors of the Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia with degrees in Political and Social Thought and Urban Planning and holds an MBA with a certificate in Real Estate from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Enrique Ceniceros

Principal, Project Executive, Science & Technology

Taylor Design

Enrique Ceniceros has over 31 years of experience as an architect and laboratory planner, and more than 11 years of experience as a science and technology leader. His attention to detail and technical expertise makes him a natural leader for design teams, consultants, and owner user groups alike. His clients include universities, biopharmaceutical facilities, R&D laboratories, developers, aerospace facilities, and manufacturing groups. Enrique is passionate about the Life Sciences industry and its growth in the Greater Los Angeles Area and all of Southern California. He spearheaded the creation of the International Institute of Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) in Los Angeles and serves as the chapter’s first president; he believes the life science community needs more platforms to network and collaborate. He was also named one of San Diego's Life Sciences top 50 professionals in 2022 and 2023.

Ryan McNulty

Moderator

MBH Architects

Ryan McNulty is a Principal at MBH Architects with over two decades of experience designing technically complex environments that advance innovation across life sciences, housing, and commercial sectors. As a leader of MBH’s lab and R&D studio, Ryan specializes in high-performance spaces that merge technical precision with human-centered design. His collaborative leadership aligns client goals with interdisciplinary teams to deliver forward-thinking, sustainable solutions that evolve with user needs. Notably, he led the adaptive reuse of Berkeley’s historic building into the award-winning Bakar BioEnginuity Hub, transforming it into a vibrant life science incubator supporting the next generation of biotech ventures. In addition to his work in the life sciences, Ryan oversees MBH’s Housing Studio, where he led early collaboration on The Phoenix—a visionary 300-unit modular development integrating AI-driven design and advanced biomaterials. His ability to bridge technical requirements with long-term vision makes him a trusted partner in creating environments that elevate human experience, accelerate impact, and serve as catalysts for users to do their best work.

The Peninsula: Home of the Largest Life Sciences Hub in the World

Maintaining Momentum and Growth in a Foundational Market

Kirk Syme

Kirk Syme

President

Woodstock Development

Sherry Wang

Sherry Wang

Head of Real Estate and Workplace Services

BioMarin Pharmaceutical

Mike Futrell

Mike Futrell

City Manager

South San Francisco

Ken Holman

Ken Holman

Project Executive

MAI Construction

Rob Williamson

Rob Williamson

Regional Leader of Science + Technology

HOK

Cory Keller
Moderator

Cory Keller

VP, Operations

Truebeck Construction

Kirk Syme

President

Woodstock Development

Kirk has 35 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1995 he founded Woodstock Development Inc. Prior to founding Woodstock Development, Kirk was a vice president of Coldwell Banker Commercial (now CBRE). Kirk oversees all of the company’s operations including Corporate Services, Acquisitions and Development, Property Management and Asset Management. Kirk is a graduate of Santa Clara University and he is the former Chair of the Board of Regents and a Trustee. Kirk is a past Director of Borel Private Bank & Trust where he chaired the Director’s Loan Committee. Kirk is also past Board Chair of Peninsula Family Service in San Mateo and remains on their Board as an Honorary Life member.

Kirk was born and raised in San Francisco and attended St Ignatius Prep. He currently resides in Hillsborough (suburb of San Francisco) with his wife. They have 5 grown children.

Sherry Wang

Head of Real Estate and Workplace Services

BioMarin Pharmaceutical

As Vice President of Real Estate and Workplace Services at BioMarin, she oversees Real Estate and Workplace, Capital Projects and Engineering, Site Operations, Security, and Sustainability. She directs the long-term strategy for BioMarin's global portfolio of more than 1.5 million square feet of office, laboratory, manufacturing, and warehouse space. Before joining BioMarin, Sherry served as Senior Director of Real Estate at Genentech, where she led strategic planning for the company's growing 6 million-square-foot real estate portfolio and helped deliver a cohesive campus experience for more than 12,000 employees.

Mike Futrell

City Manager

South San Francisco

Mike Futrell began serving as City Manager of South San Francisco, California, in April 2014, bringing broad executive experience in local, state and federal government. He was Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; served on staff in the United States Senate; and was an elected member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and of the Baton Rouge City Council. He served as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and rose to the rank of Navy Captain in the Navy Reserves. He previously practiced law with a private firm and was Executive Vice President of a public utility company in Hawaii.

Mike holds a bachelor's degree in Business/Public Administration and a Juris Doctorate degree from Louisiana State University, a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and completed the Stanford Graduate School of Business Learn-Engage-Accelerate-Disrupt (LEAD) Certificate program in Corporate Innovation.

Ken Holman

Project Executive

MAI Construction

Ken Holman is a Project Executive at MAI Construction, Inc., a leading Bay Area commercial general contractor. Working in the construction industry for over 30 years, Ken has extensive experience focusing on life science, high tech, office, education, and industrial projects. As the Project Executive, Ken works with his team of Project Managers in all aspects of preconstruction and construction with estimating, subcontract negotiation, reporting, scheduling, accounting, quality, safety, profit projections and all day-to-day challenges. He shares his expertise and guidance with our internal team, and coordinates the interface between the client, field operations, subcontractors, and the design team. Ken’s strong communication skills, collaborative leadership style, and proficiency in construction management lead to the successful completion of projects and strong long term relationships with clients.

Rob Williamson

Regional Leader of Science + Technology

HOK

Rob is an architect and Principal with HOK, based in the San Francisco studio. As Regional Leader of Science and Technology, Rob oversees projects between San Francisco and Seattle in the private and public sector, ranging from tenant improvements to new ground-up speculative and build-to-suit R&D buildings to multi-acre corporate campuses. Clients include biotech and technology companies at every stage of growth from early venture-backed to multi-national Fortune 500s, as well as globally recognized academic research universities. Current projects include the 10x Genomics Operations Building in Pleasanton, The Freenome headquarters in Brisbane, Longfellow’s San Mateo Bay Center in San Mateo and Redwood LIFE in Redwood Shores, BioMed Realty’s Lincoln Centre Phase 2 in Foster City, and UC Berkeley’s Heathcock Hall Chemistry Research Building. Rob lives in Lafayette where you might find him on the sports fields with his 3 children when he’s not rooting for his Cal Bears, 49ers, Giants, or Warriors.

Why This Matters

What You'll Learn: 

  • What does the NorCal life sciences development pipeline look like for the rest of 2022? Including conversations across multi-building campuses, towers, and more!

  • In the hunt for space, where is repurposing taking place and across which asset classes? Has speculative development taken over to achieve faster to market or do projects require certain specifications to remain attractive and competitive?

  • What are the high-level tenant demands and are there the emerging trends that will continue throughout the year into the future of Life Sciences development?

  • How is Nothern California staying competitive with the East Coast and booming central markets, like Houston? Across talent, space, and investment attraction what can be done to maintain and elevate the area's global presence as a leading life science hub?

  • Where are investments coming from and what sectors are flooding with capital? Where does the opportunity lie and what lessons have been learned throughout the pandemic?

How You'll Do More Business: 

As developers, investors and owners spend billions to expand their life sciences portfolios, Northern California has remained one of the leading hubs for the asset class across the nation. Absorption has seen record highs as millions of square feet are developed in Northern California alone, and conversations about zoning, repositioning, and expansion rise with the need for space. As we rejoin in person, let's discuss how together we can capitalize on this booming industry, do more business, and advance this industry.

Who Attends: 

Owners, developers, investors, brokers, city and government officials, business consultants, architects, engineers, lawyers, accountants, bankers, technology companies, and more!

Why You Should Attend:

Bisnow events bring together the biggest power players in the industry to identify opportunities, build your network and expand your business. With the largest audience of commercial real estate professionals in the world, no one knows how to help your business more than us. Join Bisnow as we jump into the market in Northern California to analyze its strengths and strategize on its areas of opportunity.

Group Ticket Discounts: Are you looking to buy 5 or more tickets? Fill out the form here to connect with Bisnow's marketing team and get exclusive group discounts.

For questions, recommendations, comments, or press inquiries please email our California event producer, Amani Navarrette at Amani.Navarrette@bisnow.com.

Venue

JW Marriott San Francisco Union Square
515 Mason Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Ballroom: Metropolitan Ballroom on the Second Floor


Parking information: $18 for first hour, $14 for each additional hour. Max at $76

Get Directions

Agenda

Time Activity
3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Opening Networking
4:00 PM
4:45 PM
State of the Life Sciences Market

Deep Diving into the Talent, Resources, and Community of a National Leader

4:45 PM
5:30 PM
Keystone Construction and Developments

Highlighting Major NorCal Projects including Multi-Building Campuses and Tech Towers of the Future

5:30 PM
5:45 PM
Networking and Coffee Break
5:45 PM
6:30 PM
Innovations in Space and Construction

Discussing Incubators to Large Floor Plate Designs: Building Modern Labs and Facilities

6:30 PM
7:15 PM
The Peninsula: Home of the Largest Life Sciences Hub in the World

Maintaining Momentum and Growth in a Foundational Market

7:15 PM
7:30 PM
Closing Networking and Refreshments

Our Commitment to Your Safety

We hosted more than 72,000 attendees live, in-person around the globe in 2021. Our commitment to safety is no different in 2022. Our events follow all local Covid-19 regulations and protocols. In the interest of the safety of all our guests, we recommend taking a rapid or PCR test for proof of negative results before attending any gathering. 

We will update attendees should any regulations be updated before this event is held. We look forward to hosting you soon to do what we do best: network, connect, and engage to do more business.