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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This week we had a couple of notable personnel moves, a big clinical trial result for a drug with local roots, and some sobering commentary about how this crazy biotech business keeps getting harder by the day.

—Seattle-based Immune Design, the developer of new vaccine technology, hired a big fish to be its new CEO. Carlos Paya, the former president of Ireland-based Elan, is taking over from founding CEO Steve Reed, who will keep working with the company and juggle his other responsibilities at the Infectious Disease Research Institute. Bruce Carter remains as executive chairman.

—Seattle Biomedical Research Institute secured another big new grant of $8.9 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support some systems biology-style research which ought to help speed up the hunt for a new malaria vaccine.

—This week’s edition of the BioBeat column talked about how quite a few VCs from around the country are mobilizing in Washington, DC, to put pressure on the FDA to get faster and more predictable, especially in the review of new medical devices. Normally I’d pay little attention to this sort of self-serving rhetoric, but in this case, the FDA has made some public statements that suggest it is listening to the critics who say its risk-averse stance is forcing medical device companies and jobs to go overseas.

—Acucela, the Seattle-based developer of drugs for eye diseases, hired a new chief financial officer, David Lowrance, who was previously the CFO at Nashville, TN-based Cumberland Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CPIX). Sort of makes me wonder if Acucela could have some bigger plans up its sleeve, which require the services of a CFO with public company experience.

—Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) made some news last week that investors mostly ignored, but I’m sure generated a lot of chatter in these parts. The company said its AMG-785 drug for osteoporosis met its goal of improving bone mineral density for post-menopausal women, in a study of 400 patients. Key early work on this program was done at what used to be known as Celltech R&D in Bothell, WA—and many of the key people who did that are now at Alder Biopharmaceuticals. Most Amgen investors are fixated on the FDA-approved osteoporosis drug denosumab, but researchers are keeping very close tabs on AMG-785, Amgen has said.

—Sean Tunis, the former chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offered up some plain talk this week about how biotech companies today have to think about proving their products are not just safe and effective, but how they will also lower healthcare costs. Tunis was in town this week for a WBBA event to deliver this sobering message, about how life sciences entrepreneurship has gotten harder in the new era of cost controls.

—Lastly, we had a thought-provoking guest post from Todd Smith, the founder of Seattle-based Geospiza, about how scientists need to change their culture to make big discoveries that improve healthcare. This was written after Smith attended the Sage Commons Congress, organized by Seattle-based Sage Bionetworks.

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“What is healthcare IT?” That was the question that kicked off the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (WBBA)’s Health IT event last week, which was focused on recognizing the important role that information technology plays within the healthcare industry, finding ways to use technology to improve healthcare in the future, and looking forward to the innovations in health IT coming our way before 2015.

To spearhead the discussion, which was held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, the WBBA brought in Eric Schadt, the chief scientific officer at Pacific Biosciences. Schadt led a panel that included Jac Davies, director of the Beacon Community of the Inland Northwest (a collaboration with Inland Northwest Health Services), physician and Sage Bionetworks president and co-founder Stephen Friend, Swedish Medical Center chief executive Rod Hochman, senior director of Microsoft’s applied research and technology division Jim Karkanias, and Insilicos president Erik Nilsson.

While topics ranged from electronic medical records to video-based primary care, the panelists all seemed to agree that the future of health IT will involve bringing together the patient, physician, and research scientist. As we near 2015, many in the industry predict healthcare will see an integration of social media, cloud computing, and collaborative commons—creating resources that allow consumers to more actively engage with their health through information technology. Here are some of the highlights from each of the panelists:

Jac Davies, Beacon Community of the Inland Northwest (BCIN):

The BCIN is a federally funded program aimed at improving healthcare in communities throughout eastern Washington and northern Idaho through innovation and collaboration involving information technology. In May, the Inland Northwest Health Services, BCIN’s parent organization, was awarded a three-year, $15.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to support the meaningful implementation and use of health IT across 14 counties in the region, with an emphasis on prevention and improved management of diabetes.

The fundamental question the BCIN is asking in implementing this program is, “Does the information technology really make a difference—where should we be going?” Davies said.

Eastern Washington and northern Idaho have had a traditionally high adoption rate of electronic medical records, Davies said, but “what doesn’t exist very well is the ability to move that information from one office to another.” Davies said. What’s more, she said, primary care facilities and hospitals are not capitalizing on the existence of electronic resources to provide better care for patients and improve efficiency for healthcare providers. BCIN aims to turn that around, in part by expanding on the support systems and integration tools for existing health IT services, and to bolster preventative health services for diseases like diabetes.

“Ultimately we hope to reduce the number of people who show up in the emergency care environment with diabetes-related issues,” she said. “We really look to be able to use technology to bridge gaps—there are so many gaps in our healthcare system,” she said.

Rod Hochman, Swedish Medical Center:

Swedish Medical Center is the largest non-profit health provider in the Seattle Metropolitan area. One of its primary campaigns has been promoting the use of the hospital’s electronic medical record system, called Epic, at independent physicians offices, “so you have the same records wherever you are.” Hochman said. “Healthcare is the last bastion of mom and pop stores,” he added. “The frustration for all of us as patients as you move from one place to another is that you’re almost a new person at each new place.”

“The first step in healthcare is to make everything digital,” Hochman said. “The next step is to takes what’s digital, and make sense of it—to make some intelligence out of the information you already have.” One example would be using personalized data from electronic medical records, combined with data from available studies, to create individualized predictive care models. This is something Hochman hopes to see as developing over the next few years.

Jim Karkanias, Microsoft:

Karkanias joined Microsoft in 2006 to work on the Health Solutions Group, a new venture aimed at revolutionizing healthcare through the integration of business, process, and technology. “Arguably healthcare is a data problem, and we’re trying to pioneer a new kind of healthcare that is data-driven,” Karkanias said.

Karkanias said that the issue faced by many organizations—Microsoft included—is how to bring medical diagnosis, resources, predictive modeling, and anticipatory medicine all together for analysis without short-changing any one area.

Looking ahead to 2015, Karkanias says consumers will likely be able to interact with their medical data and key players in their health and wellness world, like physicians and family members, using … Next Page »

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Three months have flown by since Susan Sigl succeeded Ken Myer as the CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). The 26-year-old organization is the largest statewide association of tech companies and executives in the world, representing some 1,100 members and 125,000 tech employees across Washington, with a staff of just 11. That’s quite a responsibility to inherit. After just a few months on the job, Sigl has settled in, and started talking about her big plans for the future.

Sigl joined the WTIA on April 5, bringing with her a background in venture capital as the co-founder (along with Tom Huseby) of Seattle-based SeaPoint Ventures. After cutting her teeth at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Sigl was recruited away to a Texas oil and gas startup, a sector she worked in for 18 years. She then became an entrepreneur, or as she put it, a “negotiator-a doer of deals,” supporting a number of a number of early-stage companies across the mobile, wireless, and software sectors. Her resume includes a stint as SnapIn Software’s interim CFO, and working with Zumobi, and Ground Truth as part of SeaPoint’s wireless initiative.

When Sigl was appointed to the position in March, she told Greg that she was struck by the mission of the WTIA: working to support, advocate for, and help tech companies across Washington state thrive. And to her own surprise, she’s found the job to be very close to the startup culture she’s so familiar with.

“It’s interesting, because I’ve never worked in a non-profit for salary before, but the mission and the opportunity is so dynamic. It is surprisingly very much like a regular company; in some respects it is kind of entrepreneurial,” she says. “For me that has been one of the biggest highlights—to walk into a door of a nonprofit and see the same kind of motivation and attitude that you see in a startup company.”

Given that I’m new to the local tech scene, I thought it would be nice to catch up with Sigl and hear more about her experiences and plans for the growing organization. I sat down with Susan last week to chat about her first 100 days on the job, and where she plans to take the organization in the future. Almost immediately the idea of change took hold. The WTIA was founded in 1984, around when Microsoft was preparing to go public, Sigl told me. Back then, the local technology sector was heavily embedded in the rise of the personal computer. Today, however, the industry is different, and the WTIA, in turn, has changed along with it.

“It’s morphed, as you can imagine in that period of time as a technology sector has morphed, so we now in the last three and a half or four years have moved from being an organization that represents the software industry in the state to really the whole tech sector,” Sigl says. “We cover mobility, and gaming, and entertainment, and digital media, and e-commerce, and cloud computing—you know, pretty much if you can label it, it’s under our umbrella. It’s huge, and that’s what makes it pretty fun.”

Sigl further discussed some of the biggest expansions in the tech industry, and how that has changed the role of the WTIA moving forward. Here are some of the highlights, edited for length and clarity as always:

Xconomy: When you spoke with Greg a few months ago, you mentioned that one of your primary goals in your new position would be to broaden the WTIA’s sponsorship and membership. The WTIA is already the biggest tech trade association in the U.S.—what would this widening entail?

Susan Sigl: We are the biggest in the country, however in terms of penetration within our own state for membership, we probably have about 10 percent of our market. And I don’t think it works like in a typical private company analysis where’d you say ‘who else has the other piece of the market?’ I think the market is out there—it just isn’t in the fold yet. So there’s a lot of upside. And then, of course, that doesn’t even account for other tech sectors. There’s just a lot of upside to grow the organization and that’s really exciting to me. And of course that’s not just the membership, but the sponsorships, and just the involvement. We have a very sizable board—we have a 40-person board—and it represents some of the top tech leaders in the state. And there are just so many powerful elements to the organization that really have the capacity to have it expand its mission and achieve its mission. And I think there’s no limit to … Next Page »

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People who make a living creating medical devices, like ultrasound machines or stents to prop open clogged arteries, have lived through a crummy 18 months. But that’s not discouraging a group of prominent medical device entrepreneurs from Seattle who are building the region’s first dedicated network of angel investors who have the money and expertise to bankroll new med-tech startups.

This nascent nonprofit, called Wings, is transforming from an idea into an operating entity inside the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association. I heard what this is about while meeting last Friday with several key players—WBBA president Chris Rivera, Endogastric Solutions founder Stefan Kraemer, Pathway Medical founder Tom Clement, and Bob Wilcox, an entrepreneur in residence at the University of Washington. They were joined by Stephanie Barnes, a commercialization associate at WBBA who is devoting half of her work time to organizing this network.

It might not seem at first glance like the most auspicious time to invest in medical devices. The industry has been caught in a downward spiral over the past 18 months, as unemployment has risen, people have lost health insurance, and hospitals have been applying greater scrutiny than ever before to purchases of new equipment and tools. Many entrepreneurs have screamed bloody murder over a proposal to raise billions of dollars through new federal taxes on medical devices.

The Wings volunteers know that all too well. Still, they say there is money to be made in the industry, and they are filling a void by helping better connect entrepreneurs to the right people who can help them financially and operationally. Many of the people in this budding angel network are thinking hard about how devices can thrive in a more rigorous era of cost-effectiveness studies (beyond the existing requirements that devices are proven safe and effective). That’s why getting the right people engaged is so important.

“If this is going to be successful, it has to be the medical device community that drives it,” Rivera says. “If it were just the WBBA doing it, it probably wouldn’t work.”

Stefan Kraemer

The main activities of the Wings organization are to help screen business plans for medical device companies, help connect entrepreneurs with investors, and provide mentorship. Unlike more established networks like Alliance of Angels, it doesn’t have its own pot of capital to invest. Instead, it will host invitation-only investment forums for about 80 wealthy individuals who also happen to have expertise in medical devices, software, or some form of medical technology. It will be up to those individuals as to whether to put their own money to work in the startups.

The group plans to hold investing events four times a year, invite three or four entrepreneurs to give their best pitch, and hopefully spark investments in four to six new companies annually, Rivera says. Investors will vet companies in four main subsectors … Next Page »

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Just came back from the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association’s annual meeting in downtown Seattle, where 500-plus biotechies and distinguished guests (including more than a few local politicians) gathered for a quiche-and-berries breakfast and some keen networking.

The keynote speaker was Elias Zerhouni, the former director of the National Institutes of Health and now a senior fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Just a few highlights from his talk here:

Zerhouni laid out the top five challenges in public health, as he sees it. Nothing too surprising, but a good way to frame the whole healthcare discussion:

1. The shift from acute to chronic conditions. (“This is a worldwide issue,” he emphasized. “This is the new global health horizon.”)

2. Aging population.

3. Health disparities.

4. Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. (Pandemics, for example.)

5. Emerging non-communicable diseases. (Things like obesity and depression, the latter of which the World Health Organization predicts will be the No. 1 cause of disability and dysfunction for people aged 25-44.)

As a world-class radiology researcher, Zerhouni also spoke to the scientific challenges the industry faces. He said the fundamental scientific barrier to doing “translational” research—that which leads to new products like drugs or devices—is the complexity of biological systems involved in diseases. “The explosion of data does not equate to explosion of knowledge,” he said. (This is a common theme across all fields of science and technology.)

On this front, Zerhouni stressed the importance of both external and internal sources of innovation. Meaning, the state of Washington should “find ways of bringing in collaboration on the translation or creation of knowledge.” He pointed out that “building relationships with the Asian Rim is probably your strategic advantage.”

For the politicians in the audience, Zerhouni noted, “Today when you get elected or not elected, the main driver is jobs, jobs, jobs.” He said his dream is that in a few years, biomarkers and healthcare stats will impact political campaigns, to the tune of, “In my district, Body Mass Index has dropped from X to Y.” (Luke previously reported on the issue of jobs being the driver of public support for biotech.)

The last issue Zerhouni addressed was a particularly interesting one: culture wars around science and technology. “Don’t be oblivious to the political, cultural, and moral aspects” of biotech and biomedical work, he said. “Be careful to not assume that everyone in the world believes what you do is holy and good.” Having dealt with the profound issues of evolution vs. creation in Washington DC—most notably in the context of stem cell policy—Zerhouni was sharing some hard-earned wisdom that everyone in the room could take home with them.

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My head is exploding trying to keep up with all the tech-business events going on around Seattle these days. Here’s a quick guide to the most prominent ones on my brain, in the hopes of saving you some stress (and keeping you up to date):

—Last night’s “Women in Tech” event from TechFlash was a smash hit, with a first-rate panel and networking. You can check out recaps of the event here and here. Yes, the crowd was predominantly women. I’m surprised more tech guys weren’t there to soak up the diverse perspectives and add their own input (or to get a date).

—Tonight’s panel on “the changing face of venture capital” at the University of Washington (computer science and engineering) should provide some spirited discussion of the unique challenges that investors and entrepreneurs are facing in the current climate. It’s an all-star lineup of local VCs: Mark Ashida from OVP, Greg Gottesman from Madrona, Ron Howell from WRF Capital, Bill McAleer from Voyager, and Cam Myhrvold from Ignition.

—Also tonight is the Clean Tech Open’s Pacific Northwest Regional Awards gala at the ACT Theater in downtown Seattle. Gov. Chris Gregoire is giving the keynote address, and will be followed by the announcement of three Northwest finalist winners (cleantech companies) who will then move on to a Western regional competition.

—Next week brings NWEN’s “Entrepreneur University” on Nov. 5 at the Bellevue Hyatt. It’s an all-day extravaganza about starting, growing, and managing your own company. Don’t miss the talks by Jennifer Mintz Clark, Andy Sack, and the Bacon Salt guys, or the “Entrepreneur Idol” pitch competition. (I’ll be there as one of the judges.)

—That same afternoon, on Nov. 5, Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie is speaking at UW, as part of the computer science and engineering department’s Distinguished Lecturer Series. Mundie will talk about how software and information technology can help solve our most pressing global challenges and reshape scientific exploration. (I’ll need to go quantum so I can be in two places at once that day.)

—On Nov. 6, the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (WBBA) is holding its annual meeting at the Sheraton Hotel downtown. Elias Zerhouni, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, is giving the keynote.

—A bit further out, Nov. 18 is the night of the Washington Technology Industry Association’s annual “predictions” dinner event at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle. John Cook of TechFlash will put some of the usual VC/entrepreneur suspects on the spot about their thoughts on 2010. On a separate note, WTIA recently announced that applications are now open for its 2010 Industry Achievement Awards, which will take place on March 4.

—Last but not least, Xconomy is organizing an evening on “The Future of Search and Information Discovery” (and Seattle’s role in shaping it) on Nov. 30, at the University of Washington (Walker-Ames Room in Kane Hall). We’ll get Google and Microsoft to share the stage, and surround them with some compelling VCs and startups, to talk about the technical problems and business opportunities in Web search, real-time information discovery, social media, and user interfaces.

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The big news of the past couple weeks came before Thanksgiving, when one of Seattle’s biotech pioneers, Bruce Carter, decided to exit stage left. Here is that and other highlights of the past two weeks:

—ZymoGenetics’ charismatic CEO Bruce Carter, 65, has decided to retire at year’s end, and promote Doug Williams to take his place. Carter’s going to stay on as Zymo’s chairman, and serve on the boards of the TB Alliance and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, so local biotechies shouldn’t expect him to vanish.

—Targeted Genetics said it is cutting its payroll by 25 percent, through a combination of seven layoffs, deferring salaries of executives, and cutting some of their pay by half. The Seattle biotech company (NASDAQ: TGEN) is actively shopping some of its assets in a bid to stay alive, with just enough cash to operate into the first quarter of 2009.

—Some bona fide good news emerged this week from OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, the cancer company with headquarters in Vancouver, BC, and Bothell, WA. It said a mid-stage clinical trial of 82 men with prostate cancer found its experimental drug in combination with standard treatment was able to boost median survival times by 10.6 months when compared to the standard drugs alone. Shares of OncoGenex (NASDAQ: OGXI) rocketed up 75 percent on the news.

—University of Washington epidemiologist Laura Koutsky gave a fascinating talk about the pros and cons of HPV vaccines, as part of the local “Science on Tap” discussion series. Koutsky played a pioneering role in the development of Merck’s Gardasil, and she had a few choice words for the evangelicals who argue that the vaccine encourages young girls to be sexually promiscuous.

—Scout Medical Technologies never did much to blow its own horn, but in a where-are-they-now feature piece, I discovered that this medical device incubator (which no longer exists) gave birth to three successful emerging companies in Seattle. Click here to read updates about its descendants—Archus Orthopedics, EndoGastric Solutions, and Cardiac Dimensions.

—Accelerator, the best-known incubator of life sciences companies on the local scene, unveiled its game plan for its latest creation, GPC-Rx. The company aims … Next Page »

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Chris Rivera, a longtime biotech industry executive with experience in sales and marketing, has been hired as the new president of the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, the state’s trade group for the life sciences industry. He will officially replace Jack Faris, who is retiring, on Jan. 1.

“I feel a great sense of responsibility and obligation to build upon the accomplishments that Jack Faris and the WBBA have achieved over the past several years,” Rivera said in a statement.

Rivera has held a series of senior management posts with top biotech companies, spread around the country, including Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme, South San Francisco-based Tercica, Frazer, PA-based Cephalon, and Horsham, PA-based Centocor. He was most recently the president and CEO of San Francisco-based Hyperion Therapeutics. Rivera was picked by a selection committee led by ZymoGenetics CEO Bruce Carter.

Rivera has Seattle ties, too. I first got to know him several years ago when he was at Seattle-based Corixa, working on what turned out to be an ill-fated attempt to commercialize Bexxar, the company’s drug for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As a few more companies in Seattle make the shift toward commercialization, I suspect Rivera will be able pass along some lessons learned that just may help a few companies make that tough leap from R&D to the marketplace.

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Seattle biotech had its usual highlights and lowlights this week. One local company won its first FDA approval, of a minimally invasive device for lung disease. Another regional bellwether had a clinical trial failure that sent its stock down 29 percent in a day. Lots of politicians were showing up on the innovation scene this week, and if there was a uniform message, I’d say it could be boiled down to this: stay focused.

With that, we’ll help you review the week that was:

—ZymoGenetics had a bad news/good news week. First, the bad: one of ZymoGenetics most important drug candidates, atacicept, was linked to infections in a trial of patients with lupus of the kidneys, forcing that trial to be halted and sparking a 29 percent one-day stock decline. Now the good: ZymoGenetics got Bristol-Myers Squibb to cough up $21 million to settle a patent lawsuit, which gives them a little more cash to weather the current storm.

—Redmond, WA-based Spiration won FDA approval of its first product, a minimally invasive device for patients with complications following lung surgery. It’s not a huge market—fewer than 4,000 patients each year—but it’s certainly a bit of good news for the local medical device sector.

—Amgen is putting its anemia drug woes behind it, with budding excitement over its experimental drug, denosumab. This week, I profiled Amgen scientist Bill Dougall, who is one of the key players in development of this drug for bone cancer uses, in addition to osteoporosis.

—Gov. Christine Gregoire was the headliner at the WBBA’s annual meeting, despite the pressures of dealing with a tight re-election race, and what she called a “dramatic downturn” in the economy. She urged biotechies to stay focused on their goals.

—Politicians were showing up everywhere on the life sciences scene this week. Rep. Jay Inslee gave a fiery talk at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West meeting in downtown Seattle. He encouraged renewable energy entrepreneurs and investors to organize a march on Washington in Feburary or March, because a “cavalry” of Democrats will sweep in to the nation’s capital to make changes in energy policy, he said.

—Ikaria had some bad news with its lead drug candidate, INOT27, for premature infants with bronchopulmonary disease. This is different from the sodium sulfide product it’s developing to induce hibernation on demand, which its Seattle group is developing.

—I profiled S3, a startup that aims to deliver research lab supplies faster, cheaper, and in a more environmentally sustainable way. They are pitching a reusable cold storage box that could wean biologists off the standard Styrofoam boxes that get chucked into the landfill.

—Sen. Patty Murray was part of a parade of big-name speakers at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s annual leadership retreat at Suncadia Resort last week. She urged leaders in global health to continue doing what they do, and not get distracted by the hard economic times.

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The last time Gov. Chris Gregoire spoke at the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association’s annual meeting, she had to share the stage with Republican challenger Dino Rossi during the election campaign of 2004. This morning, she had the podium to herself, and Gregoire used it tout the region’s expertise in biotech and its potential to grow even during what she called a “dramatic downturn” in the national economy.

“I fundamentally want and believe we can be the epicenter of life sciences and global health,” Gregoire said this morning, to a room of about 700 people attending the WBBA’s annual meeting at the Seattle Sheraton. “It’s within our reach if we stay focused.”

She pointed to a list of accomplishments on her watch. Work on a new vaccine for malaria, as well as new drugs and vaccines for tuberculosis, two of the leading killers in the world, has sprouted here. The state has doubled its exports in the past four years and is the only state in the country with a trade surplus with China, Gregoire said. Then she ticked off a list of progress in cleantech: The state is now the No. 5 producer of wind power in the country, there’s a growing solar panel production plant in Moses Lake, WA, while Hoquiam has the nation’s largest biodiesel refinery (although she left out its financial struggles, which Greg has described.)

There was no mention of some of the more discouraging developments in the region over this term, like the dismantling of Icos and Merck’s recent shutdown of its local Rosetta Inpharmatics unit. That sort of thing, of course, is beyond the power of the Governor anyway, and she reminded this friendly audience that she went to bat for them. Gregoire led the charge for the 10-year, $350 million Life Sciences Discovery Fund passed by the legislature back in 2005. It only passed the state Senate by one vote, she said, which sounded to me like she was implying its might be in jeopardy if her opponent wins the Governor’s mansion next week.

Besides Gregoire’s talk, there was a fascinating big-picture view of the University of Washington from president Mark Emmert. A few of the highlights:

—Emmert focused his talk on what he called “managing paradox.” At the UW, he needs to balance the need to do cutting-edge basic research with the competing demand of getting research translated into real-world products. The UW needs to compete on an international stage, but have a local impact by churning out inventions and a talented workforce. It must be open and collaborative, while at the same time being “competitive and proprietary” to win in the marketplace, Emmert says. And of course, it needs to excel at academics and on the football field. (Sorry, Ty Willingham.)

Against that backdrop, Emmert made it clear that he needs to create an environment in which UW researchers can collaborate with the biotech community. He acknowledged some of the industry’s previous complaints about technology transfer, but said they are just that—in the past. UW’s technology transfer operation recorded 350 invention disclosures from researchers, signed 200 licensing deals, and helped form 10 startups in fiscal 2008, Emmert says. And it hired Linden Rhoads, a serial entrepreneur, to run the office with a new kind of mentality.

“We brought in an innovative entrepreneur because we thought it was easier to teach an entrepreneur the ways of the university than it would be to teach someone from the university the ways of business,” Emmert said. “This is an experiment. We’ll learn together. If anyone can pull it off, it’s Linden.”

One biotechie I spoke with after the meeting was impressed by Emmert’s talk. “I hadn’t heard him speak before. The guy has a brain,” said this person.

One other item in the program that struck me as interesting, yet didn’t get a lot of attention, was the list of a dozen new WBBA members, which president Jack Faris called the “Class of 2008.” … Next Page »

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Seattle biotechies, set your calendar this Saturday for a date with the city’s most famous offspring from life sciences. Anna Faris, the daughter of Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association president Jack Faris, is getting some big-time exposure this weekend when she hosts Saturday Night Live.

The younger Faris’s profile is on the rise. She starred in The House Bunny, a comedy about a Playboy bunny who gets kicked out of the mansion when she gets too old, and ends up hanging out with some sorority girls. The film, which opened Aug. 22, has turned into a decent hit, earning $42.2 million in the U.S. in its first three weeks, according to boxofficemojo.com. She also appeared on the cover of the September issue of Playboy, but didn’t pose nude (she did the 20 questions interview). None of it hurt her chances in getting the invitation from Lorne Michaels and Co.

Faris’s proud dad notes that she’s traveling to New York today to begin rehearsing for SNL. The show’s season premiere, hosted by Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps, generated the best ratings in seven years, so this could be a big stage for Anna to show her comedy chops.

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Washington state’s effort to spark the biotech industry tends to get overshadowed when stacked up against bigger initiatives from other states. California has thumbed its nose at President Bush, pouring a whopping $3 billion into stem cell research. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick pushed hard for a 10-year, $1 billion initiative to promote life sciences in the Bay State.

Washington state spent years debating what to do, through an initiative formerly called Bio21. Now it’s being put into practice under a new name, the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. It’s a 10-year program that will take about $350 million the state is receiving from the 1998 legal settlement between states and the tobacco companies, and funneling it into biomedical research. So far, it has paid out 17 grants worth $32 million.

Supporters of the plan back in 2005, put forth then by newly-elected Gov. Christine Gregoire, projected that the intensified research funding could create 20,000 jobs and 100 companies over the next 10 to 15 years. Now that the lofty rhetoric has faded away and the real money is rolling in, I sat down with Lee Huntsman, executive director of the Life Sciences Discovery Fund, to learn more about how this fund is supposed to work.

Huntsman is a biomedical engineer by training who rose through the bioengineering faculty at the University of Washington and then took on various administrative posts before ultimately becoming president of UW. He gave state lawmakers an update on the program last week, and expanded on it in an interview with me at his office along Eastlake Avenue in Seattle.

Lee Huntsman: We have a mission to improve health in Washington, to improve economic benefits of the life sciences, and as a consequence of all that, make the components of our life sciences industry—institutions and companies—more competitively successful. It’s important to me that people grasp that so they can see the logic of how we’re going about it. They can decide for themselves what kind of job we’re doing. I find that people don’t necessarily start with a balanced view of what the mission is.

Xconomy: What kind of misperceptions do you think are out there?

LH: Some people think we’re a state-funded venture capital fund, or we’re only interested in basic science. There are different takes on this. We’re not a totally unique model, but we are a pretty clear, definite approach in our mission and how we go about it. We try to make it crystal clear.

X: So how are the perceptions really wrong?

LH: We do not make grants to companies. We have decided the sweet spot here is human health, researchers, research institutions, and collaborative ventures. To be successful, we have decided we are not in the same game as investors. We are not in the same game as NIH. We are in a catalytic role. We are trying to help people launch new ideas with a genuine prospect for impact. We’re not aiming to be a sustaining supporter, we’re aiming to provide launch support for new ideas and collaborations.

X: At which point, commercial investors take over?

LH: That’s the logical consequence if we help somebody launch a project. We’re also very interested in the metrics of success. That’s why, for example, we wrote a report to the legislature and told them how we think about return on investment. There are lots of metrics of success, jobs being one. One simple metric is money. A measure of success is if our awardees get more competitive and win more grant money. Suppose our grantees include an institution and a company partner, and the company goes forward and attracts investment capital. There’s a very clear measurement of impact. A third measure of economic impact that’s a little harder to gauge, but feasible, is if our awardees could accomplish something to mitigate the cost of health care. That is such a big deal, not only for state government, but for employers. If you could make the slightest dent in health care costs, particularly if you can improve quality and reduce costs, the economic benefits would be enormous.

We regard research as an industry. It’s a very important industry. It imports a lot of money, and that money stays in the Washington economy and is hugely beneficial.

X: So, back a couple of years ago when the policy debate was going on about what to do, there was a lot of talk about Washington being behind other states. Where does the state rank now?

LH: There are probably only a handful of states that don’t have a life sciences strategy. Their approaches are all over the map. Some have been at it a long time. Some less so. They’re all trying to find the way. Washington has never had a state- level focus, so that’s what makes the Life Sciences Discovery Fund pretty startling. It’s a very solid commitment by the state to facilitate success. The fact that Washington chose to do this has attracted a fair amount of attention inside the state.

X: Given what California did with the $3 billion initiative for stem cells, and Massachusetts putting $1 billion in, do you feel completely outgunned here?

LH: No. Here’s the way I do the math. We’re not big, this is a classic Washington play in trying to get more for the dollar than other people. But, $3 billion for the California stem cell initiative across 40 million people, as opposed to $350 million over 6 million people. If you do the math per capita, it’s in the same ballpark. If you deconstruct the Massachusetts initiative, for example, it’s a billion dollars, but my memory is only $250 million of it over 10 years is for grant-making. The rest of it is for facilities and infrastructure. On the other hand, I don’t want anybody to think the Life Sciences Discovery Fund is all the state should be doing, because state institutions need help with facilities costs. There’s a lot of elements to being competitive. But for the part our strategy is focused on, with grant-making to help people launch new things, I don’t think we’re being outgunned.

X: I’ve read some criticism of the fund from specifically, Leroy Hood, about a year ago. He said you’ve made every mistake you could make. It’s not focused. The board doesn’t have science people. Washington was behind those other states. Have you done anything in the past year administratively that addresses any of those criticisms, or do you consider it invalid? … Next Page »

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Tom Clement, the CEO of Pathway Medical, has been named the new chairman of the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association. He’s been busy lately at his day job, since Pathway, a Kirkland, WA-based maker of medical devices to clear fatty buildups in leg arteries, won FDA approval of its first device. Clement’s term with the WBBA last two years. He takes over for Jim Gore of the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Center.

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The Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association, the state’s biotech industry trade group, has hired Joe Sasenick and Dick Haiduck as part-time life sciences commercialization consultants to help nurture more startups in the state. Sasenick is a consultant that helps companies identify corporate board members, and Haiduck is currently “Partner to the CEO” of Cytopia and Implicit Bioscience, two Australian life sciences companies, according to an announcement from WBBA. The two will offer advice and referrals to entrepreneurs, and create networking events to foster more commercialization.

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Last night I rode my bike down from our First Hill office to Lake Union Park to mingle with some biotechies. This year, the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association’s annual Summer Social was tucked inside the Naval Reserve Building, although the way the West-facing windows let in so much early evening sunlight, it was almost like being outdoors.

There were lots of familiar faces to me, having covered the local biotech scene for five years at The Seattle Times, but also a lot of unfamiliar faces—younger ones, too. The attendance figure I gathered from WBBA’s Kathleen Poston was around 300, pretty darn good for a sunny Thursday evening in July.

Here’s a quick rundown from some of the interesting people I met:

–Tom Ranken. The former president of WBBA, now with Xactagen (gotta love a company name that starts with X), just finished an interesting project. He interviewed local entrepreneurs about why more biotech startups haven’t been formed in the region in the last few years. One surprising conclusion: the University of Washington’s Technology Transfer office isn’t nearly as big a roadblock as it once was. “Five years ago, people (in industry) were rabid about tech transfer. That’s not really the case anymore,” Ranken says.

–Jane Shaw. The well-connected and always fashionably bespectacled trade commissioner from the Canadian Consulate’s office reminded me to connect with our neighbors to the Nnorth. Ken Galbraith, a former executive at the Vancouver, BC-based biotechs QLT and AnorMED, now a general partner with Ventures West, is said to have his finger on the pulse of life sciences there. I sense a road trip in the future!

–Erik Nilsson. The president of Seattle-based Insilicos has sharpened up his elevator pitch since I last saw him. “We can measure HDL (good cholesterol), and we can measure LDL (bad cholesterol), but we don’t really have a simple blood test that can tell if you have cardiovascular disease.” His company, naturally, is working on such a test, and expects data from its first clinical trial to be published in a couple months, probably in the journal Circulation.

–Neile Grayson. The former business executive at Sonus Pharmaceuticals has teamed up with another Sonus refugee, Richard Daifuku, to start a clinical trials/drug development strategy consulting business called Phase1two3. Everyone involved with Sonus is still a bit “shocked” at how the company’s lead cancer drug candidate flamed out last September, she says.

–Rob Carlson. Here’s a new face, though I didn’t actually meet him. He was recommended by Richard Gayle, founder of SpreadingScience.com, when I asked Gayle who was the most interesting person he met for the first time at last night’s event. Carlson, who has a doctorate in physics from Princeton, recently left the UW to form a startup called Biodesic that, among other things, is working on technology to make it easier to detect proteins in the blood.

–Gary Spanner. The economic development manager from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA, mentioned two innovative companies spinning off from the lab. Infinia, an alternative-energy company backed by notables like Khosla Ventures and Vulcan Capital is one; the other is InEnTec, which cut a deal last fall with Dow Corning to recycle hazardous waste.

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Washington state doesn’t do much Texas-style boasting, and the state’s economic development promoters have never tossed around big bucks to crow about the biotechnology cluster here. Case in point: how many of you know that the world’s top-selling biotechnology drug, and fifth-biggest pharmaceutical product in 2007 (Amgen and Wyeth’s Enbrel) was developed in Seattle?

As more than 20,000 people gather in San Diego for the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s annual four-day extravaganza, which starts today, Washington is sticking with the modest approach. Yet this time it is doing a little more to stand out from the crowd of states and countries that seemingly spend (and waste) millions of dollars trying to convince people they will become the next Boston or San Francisco.

After at least three years without offering any evidence Seattle exists on the busy trade show floor, biotech boosters from around the state have pooled $40,000 for a booth this year, said Susan St. Germain, senior business development manager for the state’s Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development. The booth (#401) will tout the Northwest’s quality of life, featuring mini Evergreen trees, mountain bikes, and landscape photos like one of Mt. Baker shot from the San Juan Islands, said Jack Faris, the president of the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association.

“We want the booth itself to be distinctive and more attractive than a lot of stuff you see that tends to be high-tech and plastic,” Faris says. “We want to play up the fact that this is a wonderful place to live, and build a career and grow a company.”

There’s a reason the state wants to focus on that message. Northwest biotech companies often complain it’s hard to recruit talented scientists to the far upper left corner of the U.S., because candidates believe that if their company fails, or even succeeds and gets acquired, they could lose their job and not be able to find another one in town. Recruits to Boston know if their company goes belly-up, they can probably score another comparable gig in the same area code.

To counter the perception of slim pickings in the Northwest, Washington’s booth will be staffed by human-resources reps from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discussing jobs to advance health in the developing world. Gilead Sciences, the world’s largest maker of AIDS drugs, will also be there, talking about opportunities as it diversifies into lung diseases at its Seattle research center.

Now if the biotech boosters could just clone another Genentech or Biogen Idec for the Northwest, they’d have a sure-fire way of changing perceptions about Seattle.

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