Privately-held life sciences companies based in California raised $1.8 billion in financing in the first half of 2013, accounting for 38.1 percent of the $4.8 billion in total capital raised during that time, according to an analysis by The Burrill Report.

Companies based in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which encompasses San Jose, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and the East Bay, took in the lion’s share of the funding—$1.2 billion, or a quarter of the total raised. But San Diego-based companies led the California cities with $258.5 million raised by 27 companies. The top deal was a $30.5 million debt financing completed by diagnostics company Accumetrics, which markets a test to gauge how patients may react to antiplatelet medications.

San Francisco Bay Area companies also beat companies based around Boston in terms of total capital raised so far this year. Massachusetts-based life sciences companies, a preponderance of which are in and around the Boston area, raised $700 million in 74 deals, or 14.5 percent of the total. Third Rock Ventures launched Jounce Therapeutics, a Cambridge-based biotech developing cancer immunotherapies, with $47 million in a series A financing round in February.

The San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Seattle along the west coast, and Boston and the mid-Atlantic corridor on the east coast, plus Florida tend to have the largest concentration of life sciences startups. But startups are also being attracted to many areas in the central part of the country by states offering economic incentives for startups and the cost of living is lower.

The biggest single financing in 2013 to date was completed by Precision for Medicine, a Maryland-based company formed in 2012 to support next-generation approaches to drug development and commercialization. It raised $150 million in private equity financing to build-out a platform of services to support companies focused on patient-centered, precision medicine.

The majority of capital continues to flow to companies developing novel therapeutics. One third of the total capital raised in the first half of the year went to drug developers. Medical device makers accounted for almost 30 percent of the total with other categories—tools/technology, diagnostics, digital health/healthcare technology, and industrial/agbiotech—making up the remainder.

Venture dollars for industrial biotechs have fallen sharply, accounting for only 3.9 percent of the total raised so far this year. Many of these companies are beginning to bring their first commercial facilities online and have moved from tapping VC backers to instead teaming up with large industrial partners and countries or states to finance their operations.