ego was ranked the top biotech
cluster in the United States by the Milken Institute. In 2013, San Diego has
the second largest biotech cluster in the United States, below the Boston area
and above the San Francisco Bay Area. There are more than 400 biotechnology
companies in the area. In particular, the La Jolla and nearby Sorrento Valley
areas are home to offices and research facilities for numerous biotechnology
companies. Major biotechnology companies like Neurocrine Biosciences and Nventa
Biopharmaceuticals are headquartered in San Diego, while many biotech and
pharmaceutical companies, such as BD Biosciences, Biogen Idec, Integrated DNA
Technologies, Merck, Pfizer, Élan, Celgene, and Vertex, have offices or
research facilities in San Diego. There are also several non-profit biotech and
health care institutes, such as the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the
Scripps Research Institute, the West Wireless Health Institute and the
Sanford-Burnham Institute. San Diego is also home to more than 140 contract
research organizations (CROs) that provide a variety of contract services for
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Historically tuna fishing and canning was
one of San Diego's major industries, and although the American tuna fishing
fleet is no longer based in San Diego, seafood companies Bumble Bee Foods and
Chicken of the Sea are still headquartered there.
Real
estate
Prior to 2006, San Diego experienced a
dramatic growth of real estate prices, to the extent that the situation was
sometimes described as a "housing affordability crisis". Median
single family home prices more than tripled between 1998 and 2007. According to
the California Association of Realtors, in May 2007 a median house in San Diego
cost $612,370
