Life sciences researcher SOLVD Health moves to Chicago

SOLVD Health said Monday it is moving its corporate headquarters from California to Chicago, where it will occupy a life sciences hub with mostly homegrown companies.

Company executives are relocating to a building at 2430 N. Halsted St. owned by development firm Sterling Bay. SOLVD Health develops tests for a person’s risk of disease. Sterling Bay spokeswoman Julie Goudie said the developer has provided venture capital for the company.

SOLVD Health will work from collaborative space in the Lincoln Park building. It said it will keep most manufacturing and research—and most of its more than 100 employees—in Carlsbad, California.

The company is commercializing tests for opioid use disorder and colon cancer.

Goudie said the number of employees coming to Chicago is uncertain but that SOLVD Health expects to expand here into the developer’s Lincoln Yards project in the same neighborhood. She said the move is immediate.

Sterling Bay CEO Andy Gloor said SOLVD Health was drawn to Chicago as a vibrant and cost-effective market. He said it “saw an opportunity in the city’s cross-section of high-quality jobs, startup resources and respected academic institutions, and decided to capitalize.”

Goudie said more than half of the 120,000-square-foot building in Lincoln Park is leased. Its tenants include Chicago startups such as Vanqua Bio, which researches neurological disorders, and Evozyne, a developer of synthetic proteins.