How San Francisco State scored a key grant from big biopharma Gilead

When Gilead Foundation Executive Director Kate Wilson and Carmen Domingo, the dean of San Francisco State University's College of Science & Engineering, first talked about the foundation contributing to the university's campaign for a new science and engineering building, Wilson didn't know she already had 180 reasons to give.

Some 180 San Francisco State alumni work at Gilead Sciences Inc., the Foster City-based drug developer behind life-changing HIV, hepatitis C and cancer therapies — and leaders hope the foundation's recent $3.5 million gift Gilead leaders could seed a new, diverse biotech workforce as well.

The money is part of S.F. State's $25 million "Catalyze the Future" campaign in private funds for research equipment and student support at its new Science and Engineering Innovation Center. The 125,000-square-foot building along 19th Avenue s scheduled to be completed next year.

It is the first new STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — building to be constructed on the campus in more than 50 years.

"Under Dean Domingo's leadership, we're confident that our grant funds would truly make and impact on not only education but also education equity. We can build the pipeline of the STEM workforce," Wilson said. "(The gift) was in many ways a no-brainer."

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It was only last fall that SF State's team, including Domingo, reached out to the medical affairs unit of Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD) and Wilson. That led to a November tour of S.F. State's current science and engineering facilities by Wilson, a Gilead scientist and a foundation board member and two S.F. State professors. What they saw was outdated equipment meant to train students in quickly developing fields of science.

"Someone made the comment that it looked almost like a museum," Wilson said.

The Gilead Foundation isn't the first life sciences drug developer to collaborate with S.F. State. Genentech Inc.'s nonprofit foundation in 2019 gave a $10.5 million, five-year grant to S.F. State to directly support 100 undergraduate and graduate students a year from populations under-represented in the sciences, plus the Genentech Foundation for more than a decade has funded an initiative to help S.F. State master's degree students in the sciences who want to pursue a Ph.D. program.

Of Gilead's 17,000 employees, about 4,500 work out of the company's Foster City campus.

One of the areas where the fresh Gilead Foundation grant will be used is for equipping a fluid and process controls labs with a wind tunnel to evaluate wind turbines and vehicle aerodynamic efficiency as well as a biophysical and chemical analysis lab.

"Gilead's generous investment in the building and our students' success is also a tremendous investment in the Bay Area's unparalleled STEM workforce," Domingo said in a statement Thursday. "Their support allows the university and our exceptional faculty to further strengthen SF State's proud record of helping fuel a highly qualified and diverse regional workforce pipeline."