This was a great year for Seattle biotech if you measure success through sheer number of acquisitions. But if you prefer to measure the health of an innovation community by the number of exciting new startups it hatches, then this was most certainly a down year.

That’s the mixed bag of returns that I saw when looking back at the news of 2011 from the Seattle life sciences scene. This was the year of the acquisition for Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, Pathway Medical Technologies, Calypso Medical Technologies, SonoSite (NASDAQ: SONO), Amnis, Geospiza, and Pacific Biosciences Labs (the maker of the Clarisonic skin brush.)

While those companies got harvested, not a whole lot of new seeds got planted. The list of notable Seattle biotech startups this year includes Cardeas Pharma, Oncofactor, Blaze Bioscience, Aquedect Neuroscience and Cardiac Insight.

Who else made headlines in Seattle biotech in 2011? Seattle Genetics emerged. Dendreon crashed. Marina Biotech, Omeros, and AVI Biopharma all had years they’d like to forget. Cell Therapeutics somehow managed to stay in business. New leaders emerged at the global health nonprofits, as Alan Aderem moved in to run the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Stewart Parker took over at the Infectious Disease Research Institute, and Chris Elias created a vacancy at the top of PATH by leaving for a new gig at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation’s head of global health, Tachi Yamada, left for a new venture capital gig, and was replaced by a former Novartis executive, Trevor Mundel.

Here’s a company-by-company rundown of the major events at Seattle biopharmaceutical and global health organizations we keep tabs on here at Xconomy. Tomorrow, I’ll follow up with the rundown of rundown of medical device, diagnostic, and others in fields like Bio-IT or Health IT.

Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN). This was a transformative year for Seattle Genetics. The company broke through in August by winning FDA approval of its first product, a souped-up antibody for rare lymphomas. The drug validated a new target on the surface of cancer cells, CD30, and provided hard proof that Seattle Genetics’ proprietary chemistry can successfully link toxins to antibodies—a feat that has eluded scientists for 30 years. Big Pharma companies have beaten a path to Bothell to get licenses to the antibody-drug linking technology, and Seattle Genetics has exceeded Wall Street expectations in the early days of its drug rollout.

Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN). Dendreon was the star of local biotech in 2010, and this year it fell flat on its face. The company failed to live up to its first full year sales forecast with its immune-boosting drug for prostate cancer, and burned its shareholder base in the process. The company lost more than $3.5 billion in market valuation, and had to cut 500 jobs, largely because it sparked controversy and confusion by pricing its cancer drug too high—at $93,000 per patient. It remains to be seen this year whether Dendreon can pick up the pieces, as the disastrous screw-up of 2011 has created a gaping opportunity for emerging competitors like Johnson & Johnson’s abiraterone (Zytiga) and Medivation’s MDV-3100.

Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN). The Thousand Oaks, CA-based biotech company, which has significant R&D in Seattle, said at the end of the year that longtime CEO Kevin Sharer … Next Page »

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What was it, I asked last night, that made Immunex so special? Co-founder Steve Gillis summed it all up pretty succinctly, as usual.

“It was the people,” Gillis said.

The brainpower, entrepreneurial spirit, good humor, and camaraderie from Seattle’s pioneering biotech company were all on display last night at our big event, “The Immunex Impact.” More than 200 people came out for this rare gathering, 10 years after the Amgen-Immunex merger was announced. At least one person came from as far away as Georgia, for a chance to re-connect with old friends.

There were lots of funny and revealing stories shared by speakers during the program. Here are some of my favorite memories from last night:

—Dave Urdal, the even-keeled chief scientific officer of Dendreon, may have had the zinger of the night when he roasted Gillis. “To understand Steve’s unique dry and cynical sense of humor, I disclosed during my remarks on the advent of his departure from Immunex in 1994 that Steve suffered from the rare condition known as opticalrectalitis, where the optic nerve is connected directly to the rectum—leading to Steve having a perpetual shitty outlook on life.”

—Janis Wignall, the longtime Immunoid, did her best Gillis imitation, by donning a baseball cap and mimicking his gruff, growly voice when she made her pitch to leave the lab bench and start doing science education community outreach. “What if I say no?” Wignall recalled Gillis grumbling. He may have just been testing her. He agreed to the proposal, saying “you’ve done 10 years of good work, so go ahead.”

—Stewart Parker shared the story of how back in the early days at 51 University St., a certain young couple liked to “exhibit” their affection on the rooftop of an adjacent apartment building. Whenever someone at Immunex spotted such extracurricular activity going on, they had to share a certain code word over the intercom system to notify colleagues. “Sherman Oaks on Line 2,” was the signal, Parker recalled, for Immunoids to check it out.

There were many more where that came from, but for a lot of these memories, you just had to be there. Special thanks go out to the Institute for Systems Biology for hosting this event, and to our event sponsors Fenwick & West, Cooley, and the ISB. And, I really want to thank Tyler Sipe for capturing much of the spirit of this event in this superb collection of photos. Enjoy.

Here’s Tyler’s website, if you’d like to see more.

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	The Immunex Impact – Networking before the program got started at the Institute for Systems Biology.
	photo by Tyler Sipe

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We here at Xconomy are eagerly anticipating our biggest Seattle biotech event of the year: “The Immunex Impact.” We expect to pack the house tomorrow night at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, as more than 230 people have registered. There is still a little bit more room to squeeze a few more folks in, but not much.

For those who may have missed the earlier announcements, this event will bring together many of the key people who built the Seattle biotech cluster through their experience at Immunex and other companies. We’re going to do our best to conjure up old memories about the spirit that made Immunex so special during its 20-year run in business.

Here’s what to expect. During the networking portion of the evening, before and after the program, we’ll be playing the 2002 soundtrack from the Immunex house band, 51 You. My favorite track on this CD has to be “Don’t Fear the Merger,” a clever play on Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

Also during the networking, we’re putting together an awesome display of memorabilia. We will have old photos, T-shirts, a lab coat, trophies, coffee mugs, annual reports, back copies of the “Immunews” newsletters, a banner, and all kinds of other Immunex goodies to display. A certain co-founder (that’s you, Steve Gillis) says he’s willing to poke around in his basement to look for a copy of the “Wayne’s World” video spoof on some certain uptight East Coast pharma executives. I’m counting on you to deliver, Gillis!

But seriously, I want to thank Janis Wignall, Stewart Parker, Jake Johnston, my former Seattle Times boss Rami Grunbaum, and Stewart Lyman for contributing to this awesome stash of company memorabilia.

Once the clock strikes 6 pm, Leroy Hood, the president of the Institute for Systems Biology, will start off the program with some brief welcoming remarks as the host. Maybe he can enlighten us all about how in the early ’80s he got involved in co-founding Amgen (but not Immunex).

After I go through the usual round of thank-yous, the program will feature several well-known veterans of Immunex. I’ll moderate a keynote chat between co-founders Steve Gillis and Chris Henney, which will go for about 20 minutes. Then we’ll hand over the microphone to a group of Immunoids who will each tell a single favorite anecdote from their experience back in the day. Doug Williams, Stewart Parker, Janis Wignall, Steve Graham, Dave Urdal, and Patricia Beckmann will each have their turn to share a fond memory.

Lastly, I’ll wrap up by offering a special mystery prize to the winner of the Immunex trivia quiz, which I published here on Xconomy a couple weeks ago. The bar has been set pretty high, but there’s still time to send in your answers to me at ltimmerman@xconomy.com.

That’s it. We plan to wrap up the program by 6:45 pm, so that all the Immunoids and friends can connect over a drink and some light fare. See you there at the Institute for Systems Biology tomorrow night.

Here’s the agenda:

5 pm: Registration/Networking

6 pm: Welcoming remarks: Leroy Hood

6:05 pm: Introductions: Luke Timmerman

6:10 pm: Keynote chat with Steve Gillis and Chris Henney

6:30 pm: Remembrances

Doug Williams, Biogen Idec

Stewart Parker, IDRI

Steve Graham, Fenwick & West

Janis Wignall, consultant

Dave Urdal, Dendreon

Patricia Beckmann, OTRADI

6:45 pm: Trivia quiz winner announced

6:45 pm-8:30 pm: Networking

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I received a call from Steve Duzan in the spring of 1981 saying that he had been offered the position of CEO of a new company, Immunex. If he accepted, he wanted to know if I would be willing to be outside legal counsel. He briefly told me that Immunex was a biotech company being formed by Steve Gillis and Chris Henney, two scientists who had discovered something called IL-2 and were leaving the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to launch Immunex.

I am not sure whether Duzan or I was the least qualified to be involved in a biotech company. Duzan had been CEO of two small non-tech private companies, Cello Bag Co. and North Star Ice Equipment Corp, which manufactured ice making equipment. I was a corporate/securities lawyer at Perkins Coie mostly handling public offerings for Boeing and Puget Sound Power & Light and the beginnings of an emerging tech practice. I could tell you a lot about aircraft and dams, but nothing about biotech other than that Genentech, founded a few years before, was doing something with DNA and had gone public in 1980, raising $35 million. I don’t think that I was aware of Amgen, which had been founded the year before, in 1980.

Needless to say, Duzan and I both said yes.

I had known Duzan beginning in 1967 when he and I were part of a group called CHECC, Choose an Effective City Council, which had been composed of then Young Turks who banded together to replace a staid city council with reformers Tim Hill and Phyllis Lamphere and later John Miller and Bruce Chapman.

Our first task was to negotiate a license agreement with the Hutch so as to secure the technology that Gillis and Henney had developed. License agreements were novel territory for Duzan and me, but I quickly looked at some treatises and sample license agreements. The Hutch was willing to take stock instead of cash. When we offered 25,000 shares, they countered with 50,000 shares. We accepted. I don’t remember anyone asking about percentages.

Another early task was to negotiate a rental agreement for offices. Immunex had identified some space in a Martin Selig building on Queen Anne Hill near Seattle Center. Duzan and I went to Selig’s office to negotiate a lease with him and after some initial skirmishes, we agreed on the terms. Selig seemed positive, so we were shocked to hear from him a few days later that he couldn’t lease the space to Immunex because his bank, Seattle First, didn’t think Immunex was viable and wouldn’t lend to him against the lease. SeaFirst shortly thereafter lost enormous amounts on its loans in Oklahoma to speculative oil companies and was taken over by Bank of America. Selig has managed much better and today is a friendly landlord to tech companies.

Immunex’s initial equity capital was provided later in 1981 by Cable & Howse, Seattle’s earliest institutional venture capital firm. Tom Cable and Woody Howse were the pioneers of … Next Page »

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We’re less than two weeks away from our biggest Seattle biotech event of the year, “The Immunex Impact” on Dec. 1. As part of this event, I’ve enlisted a number of well-known veterans of Immunex—Dave Urdal, Stewart Parker, Steve Graham, Janis Wignall, Doug Williams and Patricia Beckmann—to share one of their favorite stories about the region’s pioneering biotech company.

I don’t know what these people are planning to say, but I’ve encouraged them to keep their stories short and sweet—in the one-to-two minute range. So to give you a sense of what I’m aiming for, I thought I’d offer up an Immunex vignette of my own:

“It was December 2001, and my wife and I had been burning the candle at both ends for a couple months at The Seattle Times in the aftermath of 9/11. We decided to go really far away—to New Zealand.

It was a great trip. We trekked all over, and I never touched a newspaper or checked out the news online for two weeks. I really felt like my batteries were fully recharged on the flight home, where we connected at LAX.

But there, I felt my heart skip a beat. It was when I stopped by the airport newsstand and picked up a copy of the LA Times. There, to my utter dismay, was a story at the top of the Saturday business section, quoting unnamed sources, saying that Amgen was about to acquire Immunex for $16 billion.

My first thought: Why me? I had only been on the biotech beat for the Seattle Times about six months, and here I was getting scooped on the biggest possible story in my coverage area. The LA Times had sources at Amgen, and in those days, I didn’t. I feared that I was totally screwed. It was Saturday evening by the time I was scheduled to get home, and the Sunday paper would have already been put to bed. The best I could do was get my butt back to the office on Sunday, start calling people at home to confirm the news, and try to put it in context.

I’m sure my editors at the time were somewhat amused by my eagerness—nobody expected me to come in on Sunday on the tail end of my vacation. But I did. I confirmed the news, and even got some fresh comments for a front page story in that Monday’s Seattle Times, Dec. 17, 2001. The story was timed to coincide with the press release formally announcing the deal. Editors at the paper seemed pretty happy with it. I wouldn’t say I was pleased with it, but I had at least done the best I could. And I knew there were a lot more questions to ask in the months ahead.”

So that’s my Immunex remembrance. It’s 360 words, and it took exactly two minutes to say it out loud in a practice run. I’m really looking forward to hearing similar anecdotes from this all-star cast of insiders. We have more than 185 people registered at this point, and there’s not much room left at the Institute for Systems Biology, so if you plan to come, I’d encourage you to get tickets soon. See you there Dec. 1.

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When Stewart Parker walked into my office on Seattle’s First Hill the other day, she didn’t mince words.

“Here’s the story that saved Immunex,” Parker said, reaching into her bag for a yellowed copy of Fortune magazine from November 1985.

This issue has a bold cover story, written by Gene Bylinsky, with the headline “Cancer Breakthrough.” It has a photograph of larger-than-life vials of medicine, followed by the caption “Cetus Corp’s tumor-zapping Interleukin-2.” Seattle-based Immunex was featured prominently in the story, along with other biotech pioneers like Cetus and Genentech.

This story (which was actually more nuanced than the hype on the cover would suggest) was a turning point for Immunex. Even though Immunex had only gone public in 1983, investors were getting antsy, and wanted to see biotech deliver on its lofty promises. The company had sold IPO shares at $11, and it was down to $5.50. Parker, then the head of communications at Immunex, felt the pressure to score some positive media exposure to rekindle the excitement.

As Parker put it in an e-mail: “IMNX was on fumes, couldn’t raise $, got a call out of the blue from Gene Bylinsky at Fortune who was writing this story on the magical potion, IL-2. We spent the weekend with him and a photographer. Article came out, stock went way up. We were able to do a financing at a great price.”

Stewart Parker

Only later did scientists learn that Interleukin-2 was way too toxic for widespread use as a cancer therapy (although today it does work as a treatment for a very small group of melanoma patients.)

This was just one of the stories conjured up by a treasure trove of company memorabilia that Parker is contributing to our next big Xconomy event “The Immunex Impact” on Dec. 1. I’m squirreling away all kinds of company mementos to show off at the event—T-shirts, mugs, buttons, slinkys, even shoelaces. Besides Parker, I’d like to thank my former boss at the Seattle Times, Rami Grunbaum, for loaning me a bunch of old Immunex glossy annual reports from the Times archives that are chock full of pictures. And, I’d like to thank Immunex alumnus Stewart Lyman for chipping in a couple of his own photos.

I’ve taken a bunch of pictures of this memorabilia which you can see in the slide show posted below. I also plan to bring all this stuff over to the Institute for Systems Biology on Dec. 1 to provide decoration for the event. If you’re planning to attend “The Immunex Impact,” and have some other company materials you’d like to share, please let me know at ltimmerman@xconomy.com. I’ve heard something about an Immunex band, for example, but I haven’t been able to lay my hands yet on a CD. If you’ve got one, please shoot me a note.

Without any further ado, here are the photos:

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	Immunex Impact – The November 25, 1985 issue of Fortune that “saved Immunex.”
	photo by Scott Morgan

… Next Page »

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Legend has it that former vice president Al Gore was once supposed to visit Seattle-based Immunex. Somebody had the bright idea of making a white lab coat with Gore’s name and “VIP scientist” embroidered on it, which probably would have made for an amusing photo op for the evening news.

Ah, but according to former Immunex government relations manager Jake Johnston, the veep’s visit fell through, and he never wore the lab coat. When Amgen acquired Immunex in 2002, Johnston ended up the owner of this rare collector’s item.

This is just one of the fun examples of Immunex swag that people are planning to put on display at “The Immunex Impact,” the big Xconomy event we are organizing the evening of Dec. 1 at the Institute for Systems Biology. Since I invited people to dig stuff out of their closets a couple weeks ago, I’ve heard the story of the lab coat as well as tales of various other items that have been socked away not just in closets, but basements, and other storage places. I’ve heard about water bottles, well-worn baseball caps, coffee mugs, jackets, and that there is at least one other slinky out there like my prized possession.

Al Gore's famously unused lab coat, courtesy of Jake Johnston

For those of you who want to wear your stuff, feel free—Richard Gayle tells me he’s thinking of sporting his blue Immunex jacket at the event on Dec. 1. For those of you with various other items that you can’t (or don’t want to) wear, I’d suggest showing up with your gear about 5 pm so we can get things situated as people start showing up for the program that starts at 6 pm.

More than 120 people have already registered for this event, which is a month away, and space is limited. So if you are an alumnus or a friend of the Immunex alumni, I’d suggest getting your tickets sooner rather than later. This is going to be the biggest reunion of Immunex alumni in years, as we have confirmed a rare and special lineup of speakers—Steve Gillis, Chris Henney, Stewart Parker, Doug Williams, Dave Urdal, Steve Graham, Janis Wignall, and Patricia Beckmann.

Besides having people bring their swag, I have a number of other fun little touches in mind for this event, which I’ll write about on Xconomy as we get closer. If you have any suggestions of special touches to add, please let me know at ltimmerman@xconomy.com. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of readers there at the ISB on Dec. 1.

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Chronically bad unemployment is the biggest story in the U.S. today, and we had some more bad news about jobs being lost this week in Seattle biotech. But there were a few other good things to report, including a story about a new company being born.

—Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), the Thousand Oaks, CA-based biotech giant, said this week it is cutting 380 jobs companywide from its R&D operations, which includes 70 people at its sites in Seattle and Bothell, WA. The company plans to say more about the cutbacks Monday on its quarterly financial conference call.

—GlaxoSmithKline made big news in Seattle this week at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation‘s malaria forum. The story was about how GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, supported by the Gates Foundation through the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, was found to protect about half of African children in a Phase III clinical trial. But there’s an elephant in the room about vaccine cost that nobody is really discussing thoroughly in public.

—The latest biotech startup in town has officially spun out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The company, called Blaze Bioscience, has raised its first $725,000 in angel financing and recruited former ZymoGenetics dealmaker Heather Franklin as its CEO. The idea, from the lab of researcher Jim Olson, is to “paint” tumors so that surgeons can make sure they get rid of the whole tumor, and not leave behind straggler cells that can lead to a recurrence.

—I’ve had Immunex on the mind lately as we prep for our next big Xconomy life sciences event, “The Immunex Impact“ on Dec. 1 in Seattle. Yesterday, I invited Immunoids to bring some old photos and company memorabilia to the event. I also announced the newest addition to the lineup of speakers—Patricia Beckmann. She will join Steve Gillis, Chris Henney, Doug Williams, Stewart Parker and others in this special confab of Immunex alumni. And speaking of Henney, he was honored this week with a biotech “Hall of Fame” award at an annual industry event in Laguna Niguel, CA.

—Bothell, WA-based Marina Biotech (NASDAQ: MRNA) has been running low on cash lately, but it found some support this week from a single investor who agreed to put as much as $15 million into the company over time.

—From the medical device side of town, we had a couple stories about companies going in opposite directions. Kirkland, WA-based Pathway Medical Technologies, acquired in August by Bayer’s Medrad unit, has allowed a lease extension option to expire on its headquarters, suggesting that it may not be interested in keeping operations in Seattle. On a more positive note, Redmond, WA-based Mobisante talked about how it has received more than 300 sales leads for its ultrasound-on-a-smartphone, even before it’s really ready to capture much of the market for this low-cost diagnostic tool.

—I know people have heard a lot of song and dance about genomics revolutionizing healthcare, and the reports have been greatly exaggerated to date. But in this week’s BioBeat I took a moment to marvel at the truly amazing kinds of experiments that are now feasible as scientists have learned how to sequence entire human genomes for $4,000 or less, in a matter of weeks. I’m going to explore this further next Monday at our next event in San Francisco, “Computing in the Age of the $1,000 Genome.”

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If you ever worked at Immunex, chances are you got a T-shirt, pen, coffee mug or some other piece of swag with a logo on it. The stuff might have been shipped off to Goodwill a long time ago, but if it’s still sitting there in the closet, I have an idea for what you can do with it.

Dig it out, and bring it to the big Xconomy event on Dec. 1, called “The Immunex Impact.” This event, timed for the 10th anniversary of Amgen’s $10 billion takeover of Seattle’s trailblazing biotech company, is shaping up to be the biggest reunion of Immunoids in years. It will feature a number of prominent alumni, including Steve Gillis, Chris Henney, Doug Williams, Stewart Parker, Steve Graham, Janis Wignall, Dave Urdal, and Patricia Beckmann. I know some of these people have their share of mementos laying around the house, and I’m guessing there’s plenty more where that came from.

We’re going to make sure the speeches are brief, the networking time is long, and the mood is fun. Here’s how it will work: if you have Immunex memorabilia you’d like to display at the event, please send me a note to make an appointment to drop it off at the Xconomy Seattle offices for safe-keeping. This way, we can arrange everything on bulletin boards and tables at the Institute for Systems Biology before everyone starts showing up. I’ll keep things labeled so the rightful owners can retrieve their goods at the event, and take them home at the end of the night.

If you’re interested, just send me an email at ltimmerman@xconomy.com to set up an appointment to drop it off at our office. Or if one of the Immunex alumni would like to step up as a volunteer to corral all this stuff in advance, I’m cool with that too. Let me know.

One last thing. Even though I never worked at Immunex, amazingly, I still have my own piece of swag laying around my office. It’s a plastic Immunex slinky that I remember getting on my very first trip to the BIO conference in 2001, which was held that year in San Diego. Why it’s still with me after various moves is hard to say. I’m really looking forward to seeing all the various stuff you have to bring, and what memories it conjures up.

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Patricia Beckmann has covered lots of bases in biotech—science, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and state officialdom. But once an Immunoid, always an Immunoid. So I’m excited to have her join Xconomy as one of the speakers at our next big Seattle life sciences event, “The Immunex Impact,” on Dec. 1.

For those who may have lost track, Beckmann is now the executive director of the Oregon Translational Research and Drug Development Institute (OTRADI) in Portland. Like the name suggests, its goal is to help researchers in Oregon translate their biological ideas into valuable new medical products. You can read more about Beckmann’s career and the Oregon initiative in this Science profile from earlier this year.

Beckmann’s enduring claim to fame comes from her scientific contributions at Immunex to the blockbuster autoimmune disease drug etanercept (Enbrel). That product, first approved in 1998, is on track to be the world’s third-best selling drug with $8 billion in worldwide sales in 2014, according to Thomson Reuters. But Beckmann has done a lot of interesting things since then. She managed life sciences investments for Paul Allen’s Vulcan for a while in the 2000s, followed by a stint at the Seattle-based Accelerator. There, she was the founding chief scientist of Homestead Clinical, a Leroy Hood project that was shut down for a while but has since been reborn as Integrated Diagnostics.

We have a great lineup of Immunex vets who have agreed to tell a short story about one of their best memories from their Immunex days. We’ll start things off with a keynote chat between co-founders Steve Gillis and Chris Henney, and then Beckmann will join Stewart Parker, Dave Urdal, Janis Wignall, Steve Graham, and Doug Williams in the “short stories” part of the program.

Patricia Beckmann

Beckmann admits to having once received the fabled “Pons and Fleischmann” award for dubious achievement in science, and she hinted that she might have something to say about that during the event. The award was just one symbol of Immunex’s famously irreverent scientific culture, which encouraged people to try risky things that might fail in the lab. Pons and Fleischmann inspired the award after they were celebrated for discovering cold fusion in the 1980s, at least until other scientists learned that wasn’t really true.

Anyway, this event will be held from 6 pm to 8:30 pm on Dec. 1 at the Institute for Systems Biology’s new headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. Tickets have been going fast, and it’s possible at this rate that it will sell out a week or two in advance. So get your tickets now, and get ready for a fun evening of networking and reminiscing with the people who built Seattle’s signature biotech company, and who are continuing to make things happen in the Northwest life sciences community. See you there Dec. 1.

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We had an unusual mix of headlines this week on RNA interference, biofuels, and a quiet little startup in Bothell with Icos pedigree.

—There weren’t any major life science company financings to report this week, but the state’s academic centers had something to crow about with $80 million in new federal grants going to the University of Washington and Washington State University. The money is intended to help scientists find ways to turn lots of our regional biomass into renewable fuels, and hopefully create a few jobs along the way.

—I’m trying an experiment next week with a “Tweetchat” with one of the industry leaders in the field of RNA interference—John Maraganore of Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. For those of you interested in RNAi, and who have Twitter accounts, this will be a good opportunity. It will start at 10 am Pacific on October 4th, and go for about 30 minutes. The idea is to have an open conversation about where this whole gene-silencing business is going after a series of well-documented setbacks. For those of you not on Twitter, but interested in sending a question in to Maraganore, shoot me an e-mail. There is no shortage of interest in RNAi here in the Northwest, with Seattle-based PhaseRx, Bothell, WA-based Marina Biotech, Vancouver, BC-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, Vancouver, BC-based Alcana Therapeutics, and Seattle-based Groove Biopharma all working on various pieces of the puzzle.

—Cocrystal Discovery, led by a couple former Icosahedrons in Gary Wilcox and Sam Lee, has kept a pretty low profile its first three years in business. But that’s starting to change now that this company struck a new partnership with Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical, and Wilcox gave me the inside scoop on what this team is setting out to do with antiviral drugs against hepatitis C, flu, and more.

—Adaptive TCR, a spinoff from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, named a few familiar local biotech names to its roster of various advisors. Lee Huntsman of the Life Sciences Discovery Fund has joined Adaptive’s board of directors; Cassian Yee of the Hutch has been added to the scientific advisory board; and Carol Gallagher (formerly of Calistoga Pharmaceuticals) and Stewart Parker of the Infectious Disease Research Institute have been named to the startup’s corporate advisory board. Adaptive, for those just tuning in to this story, is using the tools of modern DNA sequencing and computing to help scientists better understand how DNA get shuffled around in B and T cells that make up our adaptive immune systems.

—We had a lot of perspective this week on what it’s like for women in biotech—not something I’ve written much about here the past three years. This week in BioBeat I talked about what looks like a potent new force for closing the gender gap in biotech—a new all-female networking group called Women in Bio. Coincidentally, we also had a guest post from Lisa Suennen, a venture capitalist in San Francisco, who talked about another women-dominated biotech event she recently attended in the Bay Area.

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This week we had a so-small-it’s-scary acquisition of a local medical device company, along with some more encouraging news of a local biotech company entering its first clinical trial.

—Seattle-based Calypso Medical Technologies agreed to be acquired by Palo Alto, CA-based Varian Medical Systems this week for $10 million upfront, plus undisclosed future milestone payments. This will amount to a big write-off for Calypso investors, including Seattle-based Frazier Healthcare Ventures, who have poured more than $150 million into the company since its founding in 1999. The Calypso system, which enables medical pros to deliver prostate cancer radiation therapy with pinpoint accuracy, generates $15 million in annual sales, the company says.

—Theraclone Sciences, a Seattle biotech company that has pulled in the more modest sum of $41 million since its founding in 2005, reached a key milestone. Theraclone said it has started its first clinical trial of an experimental antibody it believes has potential to treat or prevent a wide variety of types of influenza. This first trial will assess safety at a variety of doses, and future trials will have to sort out whether it’s more useful as a hospital-based treatment for severe flu patients, or whether it can help protect first-responders in the event of a flu pandemic.

—I announced our next big Seattle biotech event this past week, called “The Immunex Impact.” This event, timed for the 10th anniversary of Amgen’s acquisition of Immunex, will bring together a number of prominent Immunoids still doing their thing in Seattle. Steve Gillis, Chris Henney, Doug Williams, Stewart Parker, and Dave Urdal will all be there, among others. Tickets are going super-fast for this one, and I’m really looking forward to seeing a lot of readers there at the Institute for Systems Biology on December 1. For info on how to register, click here.

—Cocrystal Discovery, the Bothell, WA-based startup led by Icos veterans Gary Wilcox and Sam Lee, pulled in $7.5 million last week through an investment from Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical. Teva, the generics company seeking to invent new drugs, is betting on Cocrystal’s experimental polymerase inhibitor against hepatitis C, as well as other antiviral programs.

—This week in the BioBeat column, I chose to stir the pot about how more biotech industry leaders should stir the pot. Essentially, an industry like biotech that relies on broad support from the public and investors needs to work hard to keep people engaged. And being outspoken every once in a while about industry issues is definitely one way to do it.

—This week, I had the good fortune of being one of about five guys who attended a networking event with 200 professional biotech women. It was the kickoff event for the Seattle chapter of Women in Bio, which seeks to help women advance their careers in biotech. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the room, and for proof, check the handful of photos I snapped there.

—Lastly, I had some national news about how pharma giant Merck has decided to join the long list of Big Pharma companies that are now investing in biotech companies. Merck is getting its start with a $250 million fund for biotech startups, and another $250 million fund for global health innovations.

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Immunoids, and friends of Immunoids, listen up. Come December, it will be 10 years since Immunex agreed to be acquired by Amgen. I figure it’s the perfect time to reunite the people who lived through the exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying, experience of building Seattle’s first major biotech company.

So I’m super-psyched to say that we are bringing together a dream team of Immunex alumni for Xconomy’s next big event in Seattle, called “The Immunex Impact” on December 1.

Here are the confirmed speakers who will be there to tell a few war stories from their Immunex days, and to connect with lots of friends old and new:

—Steve Gillis, Immunex co-founder, now managing director, Arch Venture Partners

—Christopher Henney, Immunex co-founder, now chairman and interim CEO, Oncothyreon

—Doug Williams, Immunex chief technology officer, now executive vice president of R&D, Biogen Idec

—Stewart Parker, Immunex’s first employee, now CEO, Infectious Disease Research Institute

—Steve Graham, Immunex’s longtime corporate attorney, now co-chair of life sciences, Fenwick & West

—Janis Wignall, Immunex scientist and science education leader, now a consultant

—Dave Urdal, Immunex president of manufacturing, now chief scientific officer, Dendreon

I plan to make sure the speeches are short and sweet, leaving plenty of time for what this event is really about. It’s a chance to connect and re-connect with the Immunex network that continues to make a big impact on Seattle biotech every day.

Steve Gillis

This event will be from 6 pm to 8:30 pm on December 1 at the Institute for Systems Biology’s new headquarters in South Lake Union. ISB president Lee Hood (not a co-founder of Immunex, but a biotech industry godfather nonetheless) is planning to provide some opening remarks. I’m going to encourage him to reminisce a bit about what he was doing in 1981 when this whole biotech business started really taking off.

As if you couldn’t already tell, I’m chomping at the bit to get this event started. To get your tickets, check out the new “Immunex Impact” registration page here. See you there at the ISB on December 1.

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The Seattle-based Infectious Disease Research Institute said today it has hired Erik Iverson, a former associate general counsel for global health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to fill a newly-created position of executive vice president of business development and external affairs. Iverson will work to create proprietary programs, and form partnerships, to advance the institute’s work on new vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics. Iverson “brings tremendous experience and relationships, along with a deep commitment to our global health mission,” IDRI CEO Stewart Parker said in a statement.

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This week, all eyes in Seattle biotech are on Seattle Genetics. If you don’t know why, here’s a chance to catch up. If nothing else, this will provide plenty of fodder for conversation at today’s WBBA Summer Social, which I plan to attend this afternoon.

—Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN) is making its case today in front of an FDA advisory panel that’s reviewing the company’s lead drug candidate, brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris). If the FDA ends up clearing this drug for sale in the U.S., it will not only be Seattle Genetics’ first marketable product after 14 years in business, it also has a chance to be a trailblazer in a new category of therapy, as the world’s first commercially viable “smart bomb” for cancer. The FDA staff review, in documents posted online Thursday, was benign to say the least. I plan to listen to the proceedings via webcast, and report on the FDA panel’s vote and commentary later today.

—Seattle-based Allozyne is seeking to go public through the backdoor route, a reverse merger with a shell of a public company—Poniard Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PARD). CEO Meenu Chhabra talked about all the steps that she’s taking to generate interest in Allozyne on Wall Street, and how this is different from the traditional IPO route.

—Not all the news this week from Seattle Genetics was of the happy variety. Zishen Fan, the brother of a former Seattle Genetics employee, pleaded guilty to federal charges that he traded on inside information about the company in order to pocket more than $700,000 in profits. Fan could face as much as 20 years in prison, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western Washington.

—The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said this week it has secured a $20 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate a new HIV prevention strategy, along with collaborators at the University of Washington, and Richmond, CA-based Sangamo Biosciences (NASDAQ: SGMO), among others.

—The biotech industry today is facing lots of problems, and one them is a lack of guts. That’s the position I took in this week’s BioBeat column. So far, I can say the response has been overwhelmingly positive to this column—apparently biotechies still have thick skins, which I consider a good thing.

—Fate Therapeutics, the San Diego-based company that was co-founded by University of Washington stem cell researcher Randy Moon, disclosed that it has cut back on its small-molecule discovery work and laid off a handful of employees, to concentrate on developing biotech drugs. John Mendlein, the executive chairman, explained the moves in this Xconomy exclusive report.

—Lastly, we had a couple of guest editorials of interest to the local life sciences scene. Stewart Parker, now the CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute, offered up some insights into what she saw during her time as a commercialization consultant at the WBBA. And Melinda Moree, the CEO of BIO Ventures for Global Health, provided a fascinating case study on how biotech and global health organizations can work together in really productive ways.

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In the spring of 2010 I was minding my own business, doing a bit of consulting, board work, lollygagging around, when I received a call from Chris Rivera, the president of the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association. The WBBA had had a strong focus on capital appreciation and on helping its members grow and prosper, and in that context had created a position of commercialization consultant. The consultant at the time, Dick Haiduck, had done a phenomenal job in this capacity, but had grown tired of commuting up to Seattle from the Bay Area. Hence, an opportunity: a one day a week gig to interact with the area’s entrepreneurs, helping them deal with strategic issues, financing issues, etc. One day a week, at the end of which I could leave THEIR problems at the office.

Chris inquired as to my interest. I said yes. My parents, of the generation that can’t believe anyone would NOT want to work 80 hours a week if they were less than, say, 85 years old, misunderstood the resulting press release and thought I had taken a full time job. “Hallelujah, our derelict daughter has finally found gainful employment,” my mother rejoiced. Her misunderstanding corrected, she still credits the WBBA with saving her daughter from a life of sloth with disastrous consequences. (And maybe she’s right…)

So, thus began an amazing several months of meeting and interacting with a plethora of life sciences entrepreneurs. And here is what I learned:

1. The entrepreneurial spirit is incredibly alive and well in the Seattle area. The fabric is rich, diverse, and exciting. I worked with more than 50 emerging companies over the several months at WBBA. Their areas of focus included medical devices, point-of-care diagnostics, consumer-oriented healthcare products, re-engineered therapeutic products, and basic biological drug development, among others. Some of these “companies” consisted of an entrepreneur and an idea. Others were fairly well-developed, with seed funding. A few were close to product launch and even achieved that in the course of my time there. Some entrepreneurs needed extensive help with their business planning, strategy, human resources, etc.—more than one person can do in a day a week. Others had done yeoman’s work but needed a pat on the back or a sympathetic ear. It’s lonely at the top…

2. There is a really supportive, burgeoning community of consultants and service providers who see the value of supporting early stage projects with services priced at less than market rates. This community is really invaluable to the emerging companies, and the WBBA has been a great “clearinghouse” for such services. Realizing that there is only so much pro bono or less than market rate support these individuals or firms can do, the results indeed are impressive. To me, it speaks of the strategic understanding on the part of the community that individual company success means collective success for the community, and significant benefits can accrue as a result.

3. Similarly, the entrepreneurs I came to know were always willing to share ideas and tips with each other.

4. The angel community has really stepped up in the area and has taken advantage of a number of investment opportunities that in the past might have been made available only to the venture capital community. WINGS and the Innovation Showcase program through the Technology Alliance are enabling angel investors to share diligence and get early insights into promising companies.

5. WBBA’s VIP (Venture Investment and Partnering) Forums are great tools for introducing emerging companies to a variety of investors and business development contacts, as well as opportunities to practice presenting the story in a concise and professional way. It always amazed me that we had to occasionally beat the bushes for candidate companies to present to these audiences, especially since assistance with presentations was offered as a tandem benefit.

And finally, it was impossible not to get infected by the sheer passion and excitement of interacting with these amazing entrepreneurs, and impossible to leave their stories and issues, as it were, at the office after my “one day a week” ended.

So, infected and afflicted with no cure in sight, I chose to move back to a full time position (much to my mother’s happiness!). I still keep in touch with a number of the entrepreneurs I met in the context of my time at WBBA, but the current Commercialization Consultant, Chris Porter, brings an amazing wealth of experience and knowledge, particularly in the device arena, that I’m sure is providing great benefit.

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Well, 2009 did not turn out to be the biotechnology disaster here in Seattle that many people had predicted.

By my reckoning, only four of the local biotech companies that I track on my website went bust in 2009 (Eden Biosciences, VizX Labs, Northstar Neurosciences, and Rosetta Inpharmatics). This last blow was softened when Microsoft bought some of Rosetta’s assets from Merck (it’s biosoftware division) and hired a number of its employees. Many of the VizX employees (along with its GeneSifter software) were absorbed by Geospiza. The loss of four companies put Seattle on a roughly equal footing with Boston, which saw at least five companies fold, and San Diego, where at least six companies went under.

Although we didn’t lose quite as many companies, it was still a very tough year locally for those employed in the biotech sector. At least nine companies reported significant layoffs, including Cardiac Science, CMC Icos, Trubion Pharmaceuticals, Cell Therapeutics, Poniard Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Targeted Genetics, ZymoGenetics, and VLST.

On the positive side, Dendreon moved much closer to being able to sell sipuleucel-T (Provenge), their novel treatment for prostate cancer, and has been on a hiring frenzy. OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals had a breakout year with its own prostate cancer treatment. Partnerships were both formed and broken at a dizzying pace, with Seattle Genetics, ZymoGenetics, MDRNA, Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Arzeda, Ikaria, Kineta, Trubion, and Nanostring among the notable participants. Amgen won its long running patent fight with Roche and was able to block them from selling generic erythropoiesis stimulating drugs in the U.S. Some top executives moved around, with Immune Design gaining part-time help from ex-Zymo CEO Bruce Carter, and with Peter Thompson leaving Trubion and Stewart Parker departing Targeted Genetics.

Other notable events: PATH won the $1.5 million Hilton Prize, the world’s biggest humanitarian award, for it’s work improving health in poor countries, and local biotech Omeros was successful in launching their IPO (although the stock price has dropped some 25 percent since then).

A number of new companies launched or moved into the area, including Arrowsmith Technologies, Beat Biotherapeutics, Qwell Pharmaceuticals, ImaRx, Novo Nordisk, AVI Biopharma, Covance, Arzeda, Xori, Presage Therapeutics, Integrated Diagnostics, Sage Bionetworks, and Genzyme (via its acquisition of Leukine from Bayer). Chris Rivera got off to an excellent start as he took over the head job at the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association. The State’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund expenditures were cut by 41 percent to help balance out the state budget deficit.

In 2010, at least three companies that operate in Seattle will hope to have their drugs approved: Dendreon’s sipuleucel-T (Provenge) for prostate cancer, Amgen’s denosumab (Prolia) for osteoporosis, and Cell Therapeutics’ pixantrone for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Here’s hoping that they all fair well.

Health care reform is sure to bring numerous changes to the industry. One key change likely to be enacted via legislation in 2010 will define a regulatory pathway for the approval of follow-on biologics, which are generic versions of biologic-based drugs. This has the potential of providing significant savings for consumers, although such benefits will depend on the period of market exclusivity awarded to innovator drugs.

Continuing economic problems indicate to me that 2010 will also be a very challenging year for biotech companies in Seattle and beyond. I expect to see many more deals for the acquisition of product candidates, but not so many acquisitions of companies. I wish all of you on the local biotech scene a productive and successful year in 2010.

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Heading into the holidays, the deals have slowed down a bit. But there was still a trickle of activity over the past week in biotech, renewable energy, and software.

—Seattle-based Jobster’s co-founder and ex-CEO, Jason Goldberg, sold his New York startup, Socialmedian, to Hamburg, Germany-based Xing for $7.5 million. Socialmedian’s news-filtering service fits well with Xing, which is a social site focused on business and professional networking.

—3Tier Group, a Seattle company that helps developers and financiers spot the best places in the world to build renewable energy facilities, raised $10 million in venture capital, as Luke reported. The funding round, first reported by TechFlash, was led by UK-based Good Energies.

—Luke also reported that Seattle-based Oncothyreon (NASDAQ: ONTY) sold the manufacturing rights to its cancer vaccine Stimuvax to Germany-based Merck KgaA for $13 million. Merck will take over Oncothyreon’s drug manufacturing plant in Edmonton, Canada. It’s part of a series of strategic moves made by Oncothyreon to conserve cash.

—The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a three-year, $7 million grant to the Seattle-based Infectious Disease Research Institute to treat patients with visceral leishmaniasis, a parasite infection, in Africa.

—We announced a deal of our own at Xconomy, which means stories like the one you’re reading right now will reach an even wider audience. Xconomy formed a syndication partnership with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that will allow both organizations to share online content, and gives the P-I the right to publish some of our content in newsprint.

—Seattle biotech firm VLST formed a major partnership with Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, as Luke reported. The deal allows Novo to develop drugs against cell targets VLST has discovered for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It will pump $12 million into VLST from upfront fees and equity investment, plus undisclosed future milestone payments and royalties.

—Seattle’s Movaya and PressOK Entertainment are teaming up to develop games for mobile devices. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. PressOK was formed in September by the merger of the mobile-gaming companies Reaxion and Mobliss.

—Seattle-based Pelago has partnered with Norwich, VT-based Maponics to provide Whrrl, a location-aware mobile networking service, to customers in more than 50,000 neighborhoods in 2,000 cities across the U.S. and Canada. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

—Not a deal per se, but some priceless anecdotes from three of Seattle’s most respected dealmakers. Luke attended a fireside chat with life sciences execs Bruce Carter, Bruce Montgomery, and Stewart Parker, who talked about (among other things) the understated role of luck in innovation and dealmaking.

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Many life sciences shut down operations between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so obviously they need to cram a lot of work into weeks like the last one. Here’s a rundown of the big news.

—Amgen, the giant biotech with about 1,000 employees in Washington, went before an FDA advisory panel to make an unusual case. It wants permission to market its colorectal cancer drug for fewer patients, because data suggests it might work better in a subgroup of patients with a certain genetic profile. The FDA panel said the data’s not up to snuff, but more trials are ongoing to prove this point, so the story’s not over.

—Seattle-based VLST inked an important drug discovery partnership with Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharma company that is the world’s largest maker of insulin for diabetes. Under the deal, VLST gets $12 million in upfront payments and an equity investment, in exchange for granting Novo right of first refusal to develop some of its most promising drug candidates for autoimmune diseases. More milestone payments will flow to VLST if Novo opts in.

—The state’s Life Science Discovery Fund doled out another round of grants worth almost $19 million. This money will go toward vaccine research, improved delivery of biotech drugs into cells, helping resuscitate people with sudden cardiac arrest, and rural mental health services.

—OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals emerged from obscurity a couple weeks ago when it released data that its prostate cancer drug candidate prolonged lives in a clinical trial, and investors are catching on. The company, based in Vancouver, BC, and Bothell, WA, was the single best performer on the Nasdaq in the week ended Dec. 12.

—Seattle-based Northstar Neuroscience, a maker of an electrical stimulation device for severe depression, got a public dressing-down by RA Capital, a Boston-based hedge fund. RA argues that since investors value its cash balance more than its technology, it ought to just liquidate.

—Uptake Medical, a Seattle-based maker of a minimally invasive technique to treat emphysema, raised $3 million in venture capital to help it finish … Next Page »

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It’s cold outside, so I was a little bummed there was no actual fire at an event last night billed as a “fireside chat.” This get-together actually took some time to warm up (pun intended). But once it got rolling, three of the most experienced life sciences entrepreneurs in the region shed some light on inspiration that makes them do what they do (and some lucky breaks they got on the way).

This trio of executives—Bruce Carter, Bruce Montgomery, and Stewart Parker—offered lots of insight for entrepreneurs in all industries, not just those trying to develop new drugs.

These people know more than most about taking on big challenges. Biotech and pharmaceuticals is just about one of the riskiest, most expensive propositions in all of global business. The pharmaceutical industry pumped about $45 billion into the effort last year, and it yielded just 19 new drugs, the worst output in 24 years. So a little inspiration can’t hurt.

Here are the highlights of the speakers’ comments, at the event at the Rainier Club in Seattle, organized by the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association.

Bruce Carter, CEO of ZymoGenetics

On the role of serendipity in biotech: “You’ve got to have curiosity and an open mind.” He pointed to the example of Paul Janssen, a Belgian chemist who had an extraordinary run in the mid-20th century in which he discovered 40 drugs in 30 years. He did all sorts of off-the-wall experiments, and tried to learn from them when the results were hard to explain. In one case, he was looking for anti-parasitic drugs, and found one worked in chickens. When he tried it in mice and rats, it didn’t work. “Instead of throwing it away, he said, ‘How curious,’” Carter related. When he took the chicken’s feces and fed it to mice, the drug worked. That showed that something about the chicken’s system broke down a metabolite of the drug into an active agent. It was later isolated and turned into a drug. “It’s about curiosity when facing an unexpected finding, and then following it,” Carter said.

On why the United States is the undisputed leader in biotechnology: “Europeans always want to focus on the 100 reasons why something won’t work. Americans are willing to look at the one reason why it will work.”

On how biotech is such a tough business: “Last spring, I was talking with the CEO of Merck KGaA. I told him that if I was 20 again, I’m not sure I would go into biotech again. It takes too long, it’s too difficult, and takes too much money.” The other CEO’s response? … Next Page »

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