AltPep CEO and founder Valerie Daggett. (AltPep Photo) The news: University of Washington spinout AltPep recently raised $44.4 million, according to a regulatory filing. The company declined to discuss the filing, but founder and CEO Valerie Daggett spoke with GeekWire about AltPep’s progress on its experimental blood test to detect Alzheimer’s disease at the earliest…
Category Archives: Health/Life Sciences
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Alongside CEO Jay Goyal. (Alongside Photo) A new startup is emerging in Seattle with plans to partner with schools to support adolescent mental health. Alongside is developing an app that interacts with students through a chatbot and guides them to resources like videos of other students experiencing similar issues. Users can access therapy exercises and…
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Amazon Care is a hybrid virtual and in-home primary care service that launched in 2019. (Amazon Image) Amazon will stop offering its Amazon Care primary health-care services at the end of this year, according to an internal memo, after determining that it wasn’t “the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers.” The surprise move Wednesday…
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An illustration shows how custom-made peptide molecules (shown in pink and purple) can slip through a cell membrane. (Image by Ian C. Haydon / UW Institute for Protein Design) Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered how to create peptide molecules that can slip through membranes to enter cells — and they’ve also created…
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Immusoft’s steps to delivering a treatment using engineered B cells. (Screen grab from Immusoft’s website) Seattle biotech startup Immusoft has received approval to begin clinical trials of its novel strategy for treating genetic disease, the company announced Thursday. Immusoft says it’s the first to get permission to use engineered immune system cells called B cells…
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Amplion CEO Chris Capdevila. (Amplion Photo) Amplion, a Bend, Ore,-based life sciences data intelligence company, is being acquired by data and publishing company Science and Medicine Group (SMG). Terms of the sale of Amplion’s assets to Arlington, Va.-based SMG were not disclosed Wednesday. “SMG approached Amplion as we were scouting for high quality assets that…
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Seattle-based Good Therapeutics designs therapies that can be administered systemically for targeted activation in the body. (Good Therapeutics Graphic) Pharmaceutical giant Roche will acquire Good Therapeutics, reeling in its lead program six years after the Seattle startup was founded to design drugs that operate only where needed in the body. Roche will make an upfront…
Largest gift in Fred Hutch history: $78M from Stuart and Molly Sloan will support precision oncology
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The campus of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. The new building is slated for a nearby parking lot on the campus. (Fred Hutch Photo) A gift of $78 million will seed a new institute at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and support research into precision oncology, a field that aims to assess the biological…
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Amazon Care’s app. (Amazon Care Image) Almost 400 workers based in Washington state will be laid off as a result of the company’s decision to shut down its Amazon Care primary healthcare services. Email alerts from the state’s Employment Security Department revealed that 159 workers will be laid off from Amazon Care. Another 236 people…
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Adaptive moved into its new headquarters last September. Co-founders Harlan (left) and Chad Robins on the new plaza. (GeekWire Photo / Charlotte Schubert) Adaptive Biotechnologies will raise up to $250 million in a deal announced Monday with healthcare investment firm OrbiMed, which will receive a cut of Adaptive’s revenue as part of the agreement. OrbiMed…