ScienceInsider

Back in 2007, drug giant Pfizer hired hotshot biotech entrepreneur Corey Goodman to reinvigorate research and get the pipeline flowing with potential blockbuster therapies. Goodman was to head a new Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center to be built near the Mission Bay campus of the University of California, San Francisco, a growing center of biotech activity. The new center was supposed to bring the entrepreneurial spirit of biotech into the pharma fold. Now those plans appear to be falling apart.

In January, Pfizer announced a $68 billion deal to buy Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. In the ensuing executive shakeup, Goodman left. And today, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Pfizer intends to back out of its lease on 105,000 square feet of lab space in an as yet unfinished building at Mission Bay. A Pfizer spokeswoman told the Chronicle that it makes more sense for Pfizer to forgo the move and maintain its Bay Area hub at Rinat Neuroscience, a South San Francisco company it acquired in 2006.

—Greg Miller