Global drug giants form alliances to enable start-ups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Drugs companies Bayer HealthCare and Roche have both signed three-year agreements with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) to evaluate companies in life sciences with the aim of working together to advance early-stage technologies and therapeutics.

Venture capital firm Mission Bay Capital will provide seed funding to the selected companies.

Scientists based at Bayer’s US Science Hub and CoLaborator incubator in San Francisco’s Mission Bay will work with counterparts at QB3 and Mission Bay Capital as part of the…