NORTH COUNTY ---- Carlsbad's Invitrogen Corp. and San Diego State University have teamed to establish a joint Ph.D.-MBA program in the life sciences to fill the biotechnology industry's ever-growing need for trained professionals.

The program, announced Tuesday, was tested in a trial phase starting in August, and SDSU said it would expand the program.

Invitrogen is one of the bigger biotech companies in the county, with nearly 3,000 employees and about 1,000 in its Carlsbad headquarters. With a total stock value of more than $4 billion, it is by far the county's most valuable biotechnology company.

Invitrogen and many other biotech companies say there is a gap between the industry's needs for more qualified employees and how many are educated.

"One of the biggest challenges in our industry is attracting candidates who have the skill to envision functional applications for cutting-edge research," said Gregory T. Lucier, Invitrogen's president and chief executive, in a statement announcing the program.

"With a large number of major breakthroughs on the horizon for the biotechnology, life science research and pharmaceutical industries, we need leaders who can not only manage the discovery cycle through new research, but also demonstrate the business acumen required to create successful companies around these ideas," Gail K. Naughton, dean of the university's College of Business, said in the statement.

Naughton was a founder of a San Diego-based biotech company, Advanced Tissue Sciences, which is now defunct.

Historically, UC San Diego has dominated the local biotech industry, supplying many of its top researchers. Community colleges such as MiraCosta and Palomar colleges function at a lower level, offering courses for lab technicians and other personnel in positions that don't require doctoral degrees.

San Diego County has the third-largest concentration of public biotechnology companies in the United States. It has more than 400 such companies, public and private, and a number of prominent life science research institutions.