GeekWire Health Tech

Inside Seattle's life sciences boom Oct 19, 2021

Five years ago, when Dr. Leslie Alexandre arrived in Seattle to lead the industry group Life Science Washington, she found a community in a mild state of shock.

"One of the real challenges was our ecosystem had tons of great research going on, and many wonderful companies, but I think our industry was a little bit in the doldrums in 2016, in part because Amgen had just completed moving out of Elliott Bay," she said. "It started in 2014. And when I arrived, it was just the last people."

Amgen was the giant that five years earlier acquired Seattle’s homegrown biotech standout Immunex, known for developing the Enbrel arthritis drug, still widely prescribed to this day. Immunex was based on a big waterfront campus, which today is home to Expedia Group’s global headquarters. But there had been hopes in the local community that Amgen would maintain and even expand its operations in the region after the Immunex acquisition.

"And having it move away was kind of, 'Oh my gosh, one more company, one more great company created here in Seattle, breathtaking research commercialization. And now it's gone," Alexandre said.

But that’s just the beginning of the story. On this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, what happened next, and where the Seattle region’s life sciences industry stands today.

Our guest, Leslie Alexandre is the President and CEO at life science, Washington, an organization that aims to put Washington state at the forefront of global life science innovation, who recently announced her plans to retire at the end of the year. The organization is holding its annual Washington State Life Science Summit virtually this week, Thursday Oct. 21.

Dr. Alexandre received her Doctorate of Public Health from UCLA and has held leadership roles at startups, Fortune 500 companies, research institutions and non-profit organizations. She ran the North Carolina Biotechnology Center from 2002-2007.

Episode produced and edited by GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop, with reporting and research by Charlotte Schubert, GeekWire health and life sciences reporter, who also joins us on this episode.

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Testing Amazon's COVID Test Aug 04, 2021

Amazon made headlines at the height of the pandemic for developing its own COVID-19 testing system for its workers. The same test is now available to the public for $40. You can order the test on Amazon.com, take it at home and ship it to Amazon to get your results.

So what is it like to take Amazon’s COVID test? We decided to find out.

On this episode, GeekWire reporter Charlotte Schubert goes hands-on with Amazon’s COVID-19 test, adding to our understanding of the tech giant’s emerging health initiatives. We also hear from an expert in the field, Jerry Cangelosi, a University of Washington professor who has studied the effectiveness of these types of self-administered COVID-19 tests.

Read more in this GeekWire story.

Thanks to the sponsor of Health Tech Season 5, Premera Blue Cross.

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What it's like to use Amazon Pharmacy Jun 24, 2021

Amazon's move into healthcare is multifaceted, including COVID-19 testing, its Halo health band and service, cloud services for healthcare and life sciences, and even primary care for its employees.

A major motivation for the company: the sheer size of the healthcare market, and the massive problems to be solved.

"Amazon is a big company now, still with big growth ambitions, and so they need to tackle big markets," said John Rossman, a former Amazon business leader and the author of The Amazon Way, speaking on a recent episode of GeekWire's Day 2 podcast. "Healthcare is going to become a bigger and bigger component of what their strategy is going to be, from every angle."

But one of the tech giant's healthcare initiatives seems especially well-positioned to benefit from Amazon's traditional e-commerce expertise: prescriptions by mail. The company launched its Amazon Pharmacy service in November 2020, building on its 2018 acquisition of prescription-by-mail company PillPack.

"Really, we wanted to make a pharmacy experience that was just as easy to use as Amazon generally," said TJ Parker, the PillPack CEO and vice president in charge of Amazon Pharmacy, and a former practicing pharmacist himself.

Amazon is competing against traditional pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreens and RiteAid, big retail rivals such as Walmart and Target, and healthcare technology companies such as GoodRx — whose chief financial officer, Karsten Voermann, sought to downplay the competitive threat from Amazon on a recent earnings call.

"Based on third-party data, they have not been successful," Voermann said of Amazon. "Mail order prescriptions only make up about 5% of fill count in the U.S. ... Third-party data indicates that Amazon Pharmacy is not gaining momentum and that their volume remains incredibly small."

But this is Amazon, a company with the resources and tenacity to pursue big challenges and opportunities for many years.

So what's it like to use Amazon Pharmacy?

To find out, GeekWire's Todd Bishop signed up to test the service on a routine prescription refill. Amazon Pharmacy impressed him with its convenience and privacy. But he also encountered obstacles, some due to kinks in the healthcare system outside of Amazon's control, that made the overall experience less than seamless.

On this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, Todd talks with Amazon's TJ Parker to learn more about the Amazon Pharmacy, using his experience to inform the discussion.

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Son's rare disease inspires dad to disrupt drug development May 12, 2021

Before their son was born, Sanath Kumar Ramesh and his wife Ramya had normal first-time-parent jitters. Ramesh, who works for Amazon as a software engineering manager, was so excited to welcome his little boy. He was ready for the challenges and rewards of parenthood.

In August 2018, Raghav was born, and Ramesh’s life began changing in ways he’d never expected.

On this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, we’re reconnecting with Ramesh to hear more of his compelling, inspiring story. We previously reported on Ramesh and Raghav’s doctors and their efforts to treat Raghav. In this podcast we go deeper into Ramesh’s experience as both a father and a talented tech engineer working to help both his son and others struggling to save loved ones battling rare diseases.

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How AI will accelerate the response to the next pandemic Mar 31, 2021

The speed of the creation of vaccines for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 was a modern marvel. You might already have already gotten yours.

But what if vaccines and therapeutics could emerge even faster in response to the next pandemic. That’s one of the goals of a $5 million gift from Microsoft to the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

On this episode, we talk with Microsoft’s chief scientific officer, Eric Horvitz, and the director of the UW institute, David Baker, about the new age of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, and the potential to engineer a very different future.

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Walter Isaacson on the gene editing revolution Mar 09, 2021

Walter Isaacson has studied and written extensively about the physics and technology revolutions as the biographer of such figures as Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. But after writing his latest book, he is convinced there's a far more momentous revolution in the works.

"The next few decades are going to be the era of biotech," he said in a GeekWire podcast conversation about his new book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race. "We'll be able to do totally amazing things that will not only make us healthier but in some ways will transform our species. So as much as I love the digital revolution, I think this is the big one."

The book explores the history and implications of gene editing through the stories of scientists and other key figures in the field. The central character is Jennifer Doudna, the UC Berkeley biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020 with French geneticist Emmanuelle Charpentier for their discoveries and work in CRISPR gene editing.

Isaacson is a professor of history at Tulane who was previously CEO of The Aspen Institute, chair of CNN and editor of Time.

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Finding secrets of life in close brushes with death Mar 04, 2021

To help people live, Mark Roth scrutinizes those who've come frighteningly close to dying. People who have been lost in the frozen wilderness in a Mount Rainier whiteout or stowed away in the wheel well of a trans-Pacific jet. People who have suffered massive heart attacks or body-crushing car wrecks.

Roth, a biochemist and cell biologist at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, sees a thread connecting these catastrophes with something seemingly quite different: immortality. Both conditions "press pause" on life, he said. It's playing dead without being dead.

An entrepreneur and past winner of a MacArthur "Genius Grant," Roth built a career on making unlikely, unconventional, scientific connections. He shares the story of his extraordinary work on this episode of GeekWire’s Health Tech Podcast, reported and hosted by GeekWire reporter Lisa Stiffler.

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Testing a new COVID-19 test Feb 26, 2021

GeekWire editor Todd Bishop: On a cold, clear weekday morning last month, my quest to figure out whether I had COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic took me to my back porch, where a mobile phlebotomist drew my blood. It had been 10 months since I was sick, and I had already received a negative result on a standard antibody test.

That earlier test was designed to detect the presence of the antibodies produced by the body’s immune system to ward off the virus that causes COVID-19. The negative result meant I probably didn't have COVID back in March. But given the possibility of a false negative in the antibody test, I wasn’t giving up that easily. And this test was different.

This was a first-of-its kind diagnostic tool from Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies, a company that develops technology to sequence the human immune system for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. T-cells are specialized cells that determine the human immune system’s response to disease.

Adaptive says tell-tale signs of T-cell responses to specific diseases can be detected earlier and longer than antibody responses, and with a higher degree of accuracy.

Adaptive Biotechnologies’ new test, called T-Detect COVID, was developed in partnership with Microsoft officially launched this week, under CLIA Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments federal regulations. The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the T-Detect COVID test for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). The test costs $150 plus lab fees.

On this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we’ll talk with Lance Baldo, Adaptive's chief medical officer, to learn exactly how this test works, and what it could mean for diagnosing and treating a wide range of diseases. And yes, I’ll finally learn almost definitely, whether I had COVID or not.

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'Data saves lives': U.S. health systems unite behind new startup Feb 11, 2021

A group of 14 U.S. health systems, representing tens of millions of patients across 40 states, will pool data using software developed by Seattle startup Truveta, leveraging artificial intelligence to search for medical breakthroughs and previously undetected patterns of inequity in healthcare.

The company, led by former Microsoft Windows chief Terry Myerson, gave new details about its origins and plans Thursday morning, saying it has grown to 53 employees. Truveta emerged from stealth mode in October.

Created and governed by the participating health systems, Truveta says its goal is to extract insights from large amounts of health data, using those insights to improve healthcare without sacrificing the privacy of patients. The health systems will use software developed by Truveta to remove personally identifying information from the data. In addition, the company says it will be able to provide researchers with statistically representative populations for studies and clinical trials.

Appearing on this episode are Myerson, the Truveta CEO; and Dr. Rod Hochman, president and CEO of Providence, the Renton, Wash.-based health system where the initiative began.

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Halo Effect: Amazon, privacy, and the future of health Jan 21, 2021

GeekWire editor Todd Bishop: A few weeks ago, I started wearing a new health band. It regularly eavesdrops on my side of conversations, and it has a lot of opinions about them.

“You had three phrases that sounded annoyed, irritated or disgusted," a section in the app reported on a recent evening, recapping my daily interactions. Not only that, but I had "one phrase that sounded stubborn or condescending.”

Another feature invites me to strip down to my underwear for a picture.

"Find a well-lit area and try to avoid light from behind," a voice from the app instructed me as it prepared to conduct a high-tech, 3D body scan. "Change into minimal clothing so the camera can see your body.”

Yes, as you might have guessed by now, this is the Amazon Halo band and subscription service, part of the tech giant’s big move into health and wellness.

Thanks to its revelations, I am now painfully aware of my tone of voice, and more empathetic toward my family and friends who have to put up with me. I've informed the Amazon team of a feature request from my wife, who would like to receive an emailed report on my tone of voice at the end of each day.

As for the body scan, let's just say this is one image that I won't be publishing with this story, and you're welcome.

You might have seen reviews of Halo. The Washington Post’s Geoffrey A. Fowler and Heather Kelly wrote that it “collects the most intimate information we’ve seen from a consumer health gadget — and makes the absolute least use of it.”

Based on my own experience, I agree with the first point, but not the second. Yes, Halo pushes the limits of my comfort zone at times. I have yet to get the motivation to take a second body scan after the first experience. But I have also started to rely on several of the features, including the in-depth sleep analysis and the tone assessment — two big areas where I personally have lotsof room for improvement.

The band is comfortable to wear, and the programs in the app are useful. Just this week I boosted my time in deep sleep after doing a recommended progressive muscle relaxation exercise available in the Halo app before bed.

And despite concerns from U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and others about the personal data Halo collects, I've found Amazon to be transparent about what it's doing, and clear in enabling me as the user to choose to participate, or not, in the more invasive aspects of the app. Yet Amazon could be doing even more to build trust.

On this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we explore the future of health — and test the limits of personal privacy — through Amazon’s new health band and service. We talk with the principal medical officer on the Amazon Halo team to get the inside details on what the company is doing, and we hear an outside assessment of Amazon’s privacy and security promises from an independent expert.

Episode edited and produced by Josh Kerns of Cypress Point Strategic Communications.

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COVID-19: After the vaccine Dec 29, 2020

To say that Dr. Brad Younggren has a unique perspective on COVID-19 would be an understatement -- because he actually has multiple perspectives.

Dr. Younggren is the chief medical officer at Seattle-based healthcare startup 98point6, which has seen interest in its on-demand virtual care service skyrocket amid the pandemic. He's also an emergency physician, and the medical director for emergency preparedness, at EvergreenHealth Medical Center, in Kirkland, Wash., the first hospital in the country to manage an influx of COVID-19 patients earlier this year.

And he has been on the front lines before, literally, as a former U.S. Army physician who earned a Bronze Star and the Combat Medic Badge for his service in Iraq.

So it was with a sense of hope and cautious optimism that he received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine last week, along with his Evergreen colleagues.

"It's been an intense year, working through this massive growth at 98point6, and seeing how we can support the country at scale," he said. "Then the individual work, taking care of patients at Evergreen, has definitely been tasking at times. It's been an emotional experience just to see the light at the end of the tunnel — that sense of hope that comes from interval change in how we're managing this pandemic."

With cases surging in the U.S., Younggren and his colleagues are careful to note that we're not out of the woods yet. But even when the world can put the pandemic into the history books, COVID-19's impact on the science and technology of healthcare will endure.

He drew parallels between his time serving in the military and the past year in the pandemic, in terms of its impact on people working in healthcare.

There's a "battle rhythm you develop, because you're basically on all the time, and there's a level of fatigue that comes from that kind of work," he said. "We're seeing a lot written about the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare worker, and not just the physicians, the nurses and the janitors and the people who are cleaning the rooms. It's impacting the entire healthcare system. These are very stressful times from that perspective."

Younggren reflects on the past year, and talks about what's next, on this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast.

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Wait, was that COVID?! Dec 10, 2020

Did you get really sick in the first few months of the year? Do you wonder if it was COVID-19? You're not alone.

On the Season 5 premiere of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we revisit the early days of the pandemic in an effort to figure out a mysterious illness, with help from experts at the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and ZoomCare. We come away with a deeper understanding of the nuances of COVID-19 testing, and insights into how the outbreak is changing the detection and treatment of disease.

Hosted and produced by GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, with guests Dr. Erik Vanderlip, ZoomCare chief medical officer, and Dr. Alex Greninger, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Season 5 of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast is sponsored by Premera Blue Cross.

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Inside the boom in remote patient monitoring Jun 15, 2020

The last time we caught up with Pillsy co-founders Jeff LeBrun and Chuks Onwuneme, three years ago, they were focused on their flagship product, a smart pill bottle that sounds an alarm if people forget to take their pills.

But that was just one example of the broader trend of remote patient monitoring -- technology that helps medical professionals keep tabs on the status of patients at home, day in and day out, not just during periodic visits to the doctor’s office. Even before COVID-19 led to a boom in telehealth, LeBrun says, the need for better remote patient monitoring was becoming clear to Medicare officials, due to an aging population and a limited supply of health care workers.

"There's been over a decade of research showing that remote patient monitoring has led to improved health outcomes and reduced costs," LeBrun says. "With a system that's already stretched thin, they knew that they needed to use more technology to try to handle this coming load of care that they would need to provide over the next 10 years. And so I think we're really just at the tip of the iceberg. Certainly what we're seeing now is accelerating that approach."

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Webinar with Fred Hutch president - Special Invite May 19, 2020

GeekWire Health Tech Podcast subscriber, you're invited to join us at 1:30 p.m. Pacific this Thursday, May 21, for a live online discussion with Dr. Thomas Lynch, the new president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. You may have caught my earlier conversation with Dr. Lynch on this podcast when he was just starting in the job, back in February. Of course, a lot has happened since then!

Register for the webinar here.

Scientists from the Seattle-based institute have emerged as leaders in the global effort to understand, track and reduce the spread of COVID-19. We’ll talk with Dr. Lynch about those initiatives, as well as Fred Hutch’s core cancer research efforts, and get an update on his long-term vision for Fred Hutch as an institution.

Participation in these live webinars is normally exclusive to GeekWire members, but as a health tech podcast subscriber, you’re invited to join us for this one as our guest, and sample one of the perks of membership to see if you’d like to join.

Go here to register and submit a question, and join us online this Thursday

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The quest for a better COVID-19 test May 15, 2020

In the world of diagnostic tests for COVID-19, there are two main approaches: PCR tests, which detect the presence of the live virus; and serology tests, which detect antibodies that indicate whether someone has recovered from the disease.

But could there be a third way? Two companies based in the Seattle region, Microsoft and Adaptive Biotechnologies, are working together to try to create a better diagnostic test. Joining us to explain the initiative are Peter Lee, Microsoft corporate vice president of AI and Research, and Adaptive CEO Chad Robins.

At a basic level, Microsoft and Adaptive are looking for the unique signature associated with COVID-19 in the specialized cells that determine the human immune system's response to the disease. Once that signature is identified, they say, it could lead to a new test that would detect the tell-tale signs of the disease in others, providing a new form of diagnosis.

The companies last week launched a virtual clinical study, seeking 1,000 people across the country who have been diagnosed with, exposed to, or recovered from COVID-19. The study is called “ImmuneRACE,” for Immune Response Action to COVID-19 Events. It focuses on 20 major metro regions in the US.. As of earlier this week, the study had more than 100 participants out of the 1,000 it’s seeking.

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Psychedelics and the Future of Health Apr 30, 2020

We’re exploring the intersection of psychedelics, health care, mental health and even spirituality with a journalist who has been reporting on the topic for GeekWire, two entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on future legalization of psychedelics, and a physician scientist who uses a form of psychedelics as part of his practice of medicine and psychotherapy.

Related stories

With Oregon activists pushing for state-wide decriminalization of magic mushrooms for therapeutic use this year, one local startup wants to keep the momentum going. Silo Wellness, based in Springfield, Oregon, has developed a nasal spray for microdosing psilocybin meant to aid with anxiety, PTSD and depression. The company now hopes to spread the good word, offering seminars for volunteers who normally wouldn't try it on the black market to test the device in a controlled setting in Jamaica, where magic mushrooms are legal.

Joining us for this discussion Mike Arnold, founder of Silo Wellness; entrepreneur and consultant Eric Boone of Cannabinovation.com; Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, an affiliate clinical assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine; and journalist Anastasia Ustinova.

As the deadly coronavirus pandemic continues to grow, the looming mental health crisis creates an urgent need for innovation, putting a spotlight on psychedelic-assisted treatments, says Aggarwal, the co-founder of Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute (AIMS) in Seattle.

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An Objective Test for Autism? Apr 15, 2020

SPOKANE, Wash. — If you showed up at an emergency room with a heart attack, you’d expect to receive some diagnostic tests like pulse, blood pressure and an EKG. You’d be surprised if medical professionals based their assessment only on how you looked, or how they perceived your behavior that day.

Yet, that is exactly how autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed. Dr. Georgina Lynch, an assistant professor at Washington State University in Spokane, Wash., says autism is assessed with too limited a set of tools, focusing only on sociability and behavior markers that can often be perceived subjectively by healthcare providers.

She started Appiture Biotechnologies to bring a new objective autism test to the healthcare market. Researchers have long hoped that a genetic marker or blood test would offer an objective clue to diagnosing autism. Instead, Dr. Lynch’s approach is based on what she finds to be a unique reaction to light in the pupils of people on the autism spectrum.

“When we think of autism as just a behavioral or mental health disorder, that's the first mistake,” she said. “We need to think about it as a biological condition.”

Read more and see a video of the test at geekwire.com/healthtech.

This week's episode was reported, hosted and produced for GeekWire by Meredith Hogan, an independent multimedia journalist who produces documentary podcasts, video, films and interactive features. She worked previously for NBCNews.com and has a BS in Journalism from Northwestern University. Follow her @mer_hogan.

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COVID-19 and the future of health tech Apr 07, 2020

Much of the current focus in health care is rightly on the near-term challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. But beyond the current crisis, health care technology veterans are already seeing major changes that promise to become permanent realities -- from the sudden boom in telemedicine, to regulatory shifts impacting health care billing, to the use of location data to track the disease.

"Most interesting is what's going to happen when this is over," says Anne Weiler, the co-founder and former CEO of Seattle health tech startup Wellpepper, recently acquired by Caravan Health. "I don't think people are going to be satisfied with going back to the status quo, because these other things are now working."

"I think these regulatory changes represent a big shift in how health care will be delivered beyond 2020," adds Nirav Shah, CEO of Sentinel Healthcare, a neurologist and the former stroke director at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Sentinel recently launched a real-time fever tracking app for COVID-19 cases, and today announced that UT Health Austin will roll out its quarantine management program.

But it will be key to deliver solutions that actually work for front-line health care workers, says Doug Cusick, CEO of Seattle startup TransformativeMed, which is offering its electronic record keeping application to screen COVID-19 patients, monitor symptom checklists, and track lab results and other data.

"Look to technology to solve problems, but don't forget about these poor clinicians who've been left out in the process," Cusick explains. "The view has to be into solving these big communication and collaboration problems, which will enable so much else to work across our ecosystem."

We introduced these health tech leaders recently and brought them together for a conversation about the COVID-19 crisis. The conversation quickly turned to the long-term implications for hospitals, clinicians, startups, patients and health technology.

As a bonus, here are some of Anne Weiler's recommended Twitter accounts to follow, which she alluded to during the show.

@ScottGottliebMD
@RanaAwdish
@meganranney
@leorahorwitzmd
@DrSidMukherjee
@UrbaneDoc4Kids
@Farzad_MD
@ShawnteJamesMD

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The Quest for Masks Mar 26, 2020

On this episode: FindTheMasks.com,GetUsPPE.org and Masks 4 WA.

The coronavirus outbreak in Washington state has not yet reached the "peak" some public health officials anticipate but already ICU physicians like Mike Holmes are grappling with a dearth of necessary supplies.

Holmes described an "extreme shortage" of masks he and his colleagues at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle need to treat COVID-19 patients. "We are now reusing single-use masks over and over and over again," he said.

It's a challenge facing healthcare workers across Washington, who are asking the general public to donate any personal protective equipment (PPE) they have. Though Washington is receiving some supplies from the federal stockpile of protective equipment, people on the front lines of the crisis say it is not enough.

But long before Washington became a hotspot for COVID-19, it was an epicenter of innovation, home to Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, and hundreds of tech startups known for creative problem-solving. Many of those innovators are now stepping up to find ways around supply chain challenges and the global shortage of protective gear for healthcare providers. GeekWire's Monica Nickelsburg joins us with the story on this special episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast.

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AI vs. Coronavirus Mar 17, 2020

A consortium of tech leaders — including Seattle’s Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Microsoft — today unveiled an AI-enabled database that’s meant to give researchers quicker, surer access to resources relating to coronavirus and how to stop it. GeekWire science editor Alan Boyle explains the initiative on this special episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast. Read his story here.

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Coronavirus and the future of vaccines Mar 05, 2020

A new generation of cutting-edge vaccines could dramatically accelerate the global response to future outbreaks such as the current coronavirus epidemic. On a special episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, we go behind the scenes with two University of Washington scientists pursuing these vaccine breakthroughs. Dr. Deborah Fuller is a professor of microbiology and a vaccinologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Dr. Jesse Erasmus, a molecular virologist working on new RNA vaccine and therapeutic technologies.

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New Fred Hutch President, Dr. Thomas Lynch Feb 05, 2020

Dr. Thomas Lynch is in his first week as the new leader of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, but he already has a four-point plan to help guide the Seattle-based institute in its quest to treat and ultimately cure cancer.

Given his new home, in the middle of one of the country's hottest tech hubs, it's no coincidence that one of those points heavily involves on the technology industry.

"The intersection between tech and data and science is something we are really well-poised to be able to understand and exploit here in the Seattle ecosystem," Lynch said in an interview with GeekWire this week. He cited the quest to "look at very large data sets of electronic medical records, genomic data, proteomic data, and begin to understand who gets cancer, and why do they get it."

Fred Hutch currently collaborates with Amazon to mine and decode medical records using artificial intelligence, and reduce the processing time needed to analyz the microbiome. It also partners with Microsoft on a Pacific Northwest data discovery program, and a new $40 million initiative to address global health challenges with AI. A collaboration with Pattern Computer for analyzing genetic variations is an example of the institute's work with smaller tech companies.

Dr. Lynch, a veteran physician and scientist, is the sixth president in the 44-year history of the Seattle-based cancer research institution, which employs more than 3,000 people and is ranked first in National Institutes of Health funding among all U.S. independent research centers.

He’s a scientist and oncologist who was part of the first research team to discover how targeted therapies could help lung cancer patients with a specific genetic mutation. Lynch was most recently chief scientific officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb. Prior to that he held leadership roles as CEO of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, director of the Yale Cancer Center, physician-in-chief at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, chief of hematology-oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

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Scientists pursue new genetic insights for health Jan 10, 2020

It has been nearly two decades since scientists accomplished the first complete sequencing of the human genome. This historic moment gave us an unprecedented view of human DNA, the genetic code that determines everything from our eye color to our chance of disease, unlocking some of the biggest mysteries of human life.

Twenty years later, despite the prevalence of genetic sequencing, considerable work remains to fulfill the promise of these advances to alleviate and cure human illness and disease.

Scientists and researchers are “actually extremely good at reading genomes, but we're very, very bad at understanding what we're reading,” says Lea Starita, co-director of Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine’s Advanced Technology Lab, and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington.

But that is changing thanks to new tools and approaches, including one called Deep Mutational Scanning. This powerful technique for determining genetic variants is generating widespread interest in the field of genetics and personalized medicine, and it’s the subject of a symposium and workshop on Jan. 13 and 14, 2020, at the University of Washington.

“I think approaches like Deep Mutational Scanning will eventually allow us to make better countermeasures, both vaccines and drugs that will help us combat even these viruses that are changing very rapidly” said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary and computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Washington Department of Genome Sciences.

Bloom, who researches the evolution of viruses, will deliver the keynote at the symposium, held by the Brotman Baty Institute and the Center for the Multiplex Assessment of Phenotype.

On this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we get a preview and a deeper understanding of Deep Mutational Scanning from Bloom and Starita.

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DIY AI: One mom's healthcare quest Dec 11, 2019

Melissa Mulholland was 16 weeks pregnant with her second child when her doctor noticed something unusual in an ultrasound scan. It was a condition called posterior urethral valves, PUV, and it meant her son wouldn’t survive the womb without medical intervention. She was fortunate to have a doctor skilled in detecting the condition and intervening to address it, and the good news is that her son, Conor, is now 5 years old.

But the experience left Mulholland thinking about the families who aren’t so lucky to have such expert health care. She wondered if technology could be a solution. She’s not an engineer, and doesn’t have a technical background, but she works at Microsoft, so she’s familiar with the latest technologies in her role working with the company’s cloud customers and partners.

She asked a question that not a lot of people would ask: could artificial intelligence help?

The answer was yes. What happened next was a case study in the potential of machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to transform health care and other industries, particularly as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others work to make the tools more accessible.

Melissa Mulholland tells us her family’s story on this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast.

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Saving Lives with Smart Devices and Sonar Oct 29, 2019

A lot of us are using apps and devices to get healthy. But these are just the beginning of a wave of technologies that promise to give our smartphones health superpowers. On this episode, we’re talking to Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Washington. Shyam has been doing crazy things with smartphones and smart speakers like Alexa — turning them into sonar machines that can detect heart attacks, opioid overdoses or even something as simple as an ear infection.

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Dr. Bot (Season 4 Premiere) Sep 19, 2019

Artificial intelligence is at the center of many technology discussions today, and perhaps nowhere are the implications more meaningful than in the world of health care. So where is AI making an impact in health? What does the future bring, and how should healthcare providers and technologists get ready? On the Season 4 premiere of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, we address all of those questions with three guests, Linda Hand, CEO of Cardinal Analytx, Colt Courtright who leads Corporate Data & Analytics at Premera Blue Cross, and Dr. David Rhew, Microsoft’s chief medical officer and vice president of healthcare. This episode was recorded on location at the dotBlue conference in Seattle, hosted by our returning sponsor of the show, Premera Blue Cross.

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Climbing Kilamanjaro for Cancer Research Jul 06, 2019

Kristin Anderson has already fought cancer in more ways than one. She's a cancer survivor whose battle with breast cancer started when she was just 28 years old and pursuing a doctorate in immunology. And as a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, she's investigating ways to use our body's own immune system to attack solid tumors.

But Anderson has a new plan to fight the disease. She's climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as part of a fundraising effort that has raised $1.4 million and drawn 28 climbers, several of whom are biotech executives and investors.

The effort is led by Luke Timmerman, a veteran biotech journalist and founder of the Timmerman Report. Timmerman previously climbed Mount Everest in a similar effort and raised $340,000 in donations for Seattle’s Fred Hutch.

Timmerman picked Kilimanjaro with the idea that he could raise far more money with a group of climbers than he could on his own. That thesis bore out, and the group easily beat their $1 million goal. The money will go to supporting some of the most high risk, high reward research at Fred Hutch. To support Anderson and the other climbers, you can get all the details at Climb to Fight Cancer.

On the latest episode of the GeekWire Health Tech podcast, Anderson talks about how her own fight with breast cancer led her to pursue a career in cancer research — and her plan for conquering Mount Kilimanjaro.

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Can virtual assistants make healthcare more human? Jun 25, 2019

Peek into a random hospital room in the U.S. today, and you might see something that makes you cynical about technology. The classic scene is of a provider talking with a patient as they face the opposite direction and take detailed notes on a computer. In other words, the patient's only face-time with their doctor is spent staring at the back of his or her neck.

Beyond the loss of human interaction, the long hours spent entering these notes at the end of the day have placed a well-documented burden on clinicians, leading to elevated rates of burnout, depression and suicide.

"The average clinician spends two to three hours at night, after hours doing mundane data entry work. We've turned physicians into the highest paying data entry people in the planet," said Ryan Plasch, vice president of growth and strategy at Saykara, a startup that makes a voice assistant for clinicians.

On the latest episode GeekWire Health Tech podcast, we have the second episode in a two-part series on the rise of voice assistants in healthcare. We'll hear from Saykara and Tuzag, two Seattle-area startups that are creating a future where voice assistants make healthcare more human by freeing doctors from their keyboards and even forming relationships with patients.

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Paging Dr. Alexa May 23, 2019

Voice assistants are coming to the hospital. Last month, Amazon Alexa announced a new skill that made the platform compliant with HIPAA, a set of privacy rules that govern patient data. Not far behind in the race are Google, Apple and Microsoft, which are also positioned to bring their voice assistants to healthcare settings. On this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we dig in with the first of a two-part series on the latest technology sweeping the industry. We’ll hear from innovators at two major health systems about how they're using Alexa in healthcare today as well as their predictions for the future of voice assistants.

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Why smaller eye drops are a big deal Apr 16, 2019

Nanodropper, a startup created by a group of University of Washington students, has developed an adapter that makes eye drops smaller. It’s a way for people with glaucoma and other eye diseases to waste less of their medication and save money. The idea was inspired by an article published by NPR and ProPublica, which pointed out how pharmaceutical companies make eye drops that are larger than what the human eye can physically absorb.

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Inside Amazon’s 'Haven' healthcare joint venture Mar 13, 2019

It has been more than a year since the healthcare joint venture between Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway was announced. Since then, we haven't heard much — until now. Last week, the venture finally got a name, Haven, and on its new website, the joint venture shared where it will focus within this $8 trillion global industry. And earlier this month, 300 pages of unsealed court documents offered additional clues about Haven’s plans. On this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech podcast, we catch up with health tech entrepreneurs, 98point6 CEO Robbie Cape and Wellpepper CEO Anne Weiler, to get their take on the joint venture's ambitions.

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How an outsider solved a healthcare blind spot Feb 19, 2019

Beth Kolko's superpower may not seem that out of the ordinary. She can't see through walls, but she can see what's wrong with the things we use in everyday life — problems that never occurred to the experts who built them. As the CEO of medical device maker Shift Labs, Kolko has focused that superpower on health care. Specifically, she wants to solve the problems that arise when an industry makes medical devices almost exclusively for patients in hospitals in rich countries and ignores almost everyone else.

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The mobile ultrasound revolution Jan 23, 2019

On this episode of GeekWire Health Tech, we look at how portable ultrasound devices are changing the medical landscape – building on the technology’s roots in the Seattle region. Ultrasound is going far beyond obstetrics to allowing physicians to diagnose medical conditions more efficiently -- in the field and the clinic. And increasingly, it’s being used not just for imaging and diagnosis but for actual treatment of disease. Our guests are Mike Bailey, an engineer who focuses on ultrasound research and development at the University of Washington, along with health journalist Kellie Schmitt, who writes about the evolution of ultrasound in a new GeekWire article.

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Live: How technology is changing healthcare Jan 09, 2019

This episode features highlights from a special event, kicking off Season 3 of GeekWire's Health Podcast, on location at Premera Blue Cross, the sponsor of this new season of the show. The discussion sets the stage for the topics we'll be exploring this season, looking at the many ways technology is changing the healthcare landscape. We're joined by Ranjani Ramamurthy, principal physician scientist at Microsoft, who has a background in both medicine and engineering, as an MD and a computer scientist; Oron Afek, CEO and co-founder at healthcare technology startup Vim; and Robbie Cape, CEO and co-founder of startup 98point6, a Seattle-based entrepreneur who sold his previous company, Cozi, to Time Inc. The discussion is kicked off by John Espinola, executive vice president of healthcare services for Premera Blue Cross.

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Resilience: The story of Universal Cells Oct 31, 2018

Twenty-one years ago, Claudia Mitchell arrived in a new country to start her doctorate program — with a 4-month old baby in tow. She is now a geneticist, an award-winning entrepreneur and the leader of Universal Cells, which was acquired in January for $100 million. Claudia shares her entrepreneur's journey with us on the season two finale of Health Tech, including the game-changing impact of universal donor cell technology.

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The little vaccine that could Sep 14, 2018

In 2000, rotavirus killed more than half a million children every year. Not many people had even heard of the disease. Then an unlikely alliance of international scientists, policymakers, one inexperienced entrepreneur and the richest man in the world teamed up to take it on. We tell the story of what happened on this episode.

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CAR T: The Underdog Cancer Killer Aug 08, 2018

Nine years ago, Stephanie Florence was diagnosed with incurable blood cancer. Today, she's cancer-free thanks to a new treatment called CAR T immunotherapy. This treatment is the golden child of cancer research today — but it wasn't always this way. Find out how CAR T went from an underdog to a cancer killer on this episode of Health Tech.

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Can Amazon 'fix' healthcare? Jul 12, 2018

The U.S. healthcare system needs to change. But how? Can the system be 'fixed' the way that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase want to fix it with their new healthcare company? What would 'fixing' the system even look like? We explore answers to those questions on this episode of Health Tech.

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Doctors Without Data Jun 06, 2018

Dr. Dan Low wanted to know how his patients were doing on a new drug. Getting the data was so painful, he decided to found his own software company to make it easier. On this episode of Health Tech: Dan's journey from career doctor to startup CEO and back, and what his experience says about the state of healthcare data.

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AI vs. Cancer May 03, 2018

Su-In Lee's father passed away from incurable cancer. Now she's using her expertise in artificial intelligence to help cancer patients find the most effective treatment — based on their genetic data. On this episode, we follow Su-In's story and explore how precision medicine is increasingly using health data, AI and other technologies to fight diseases from cancer to Alzheimer's.

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A 'tricorder' in your home: Lee Hood on the future of health technology Feb 07, 2018

Technologies have drastically changed health and healthcare in the past 20 years and Lee Hood is one of the innovators behind those changes. We speak to the genetics and biology pioneer about how he brought engineering into biology and explore his vision for the future of health, tricorders and all. This is the final episode of our first season of Health Tech -- subscribe to the Health Tech podcast in your favorite podcast player to get notifications about our second season.

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Health's AI revolution Jan 09, 2018

The healthcare world faces a lot of challenges, and oftentimes it also knows the answer to those challenges -- it just needs some help putting the pieces together. That's where artificial intelligence comes in. On this episode of Health Tech, we dive into how health is using AI to solve some of its biggest problems. Follow all our health and technology coverage at GeekWire.com

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CVS, Aetna and healthcare's 'mass freak-out' Dec 07, 2017

Amazon might start selling prescription drugs online — and it's causing a "mass freak-out" among the healthcare industry. One result: drugstore chain CVS brough Aetna, a health insurance company. We analyze the trends behind the deal and ask: Are they going to be good for patients?
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation

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Disrupting healthcare from the inside Nov 29, 2017

Tech is all about disruption. Healthcare is about slow and steady change. How do you merge those worlds? For Mike McSherry and Mary Haggard, the answer was to innovate form the inside out. Mary runs Providence St. Joseph Health's startup incubator and Mike is the founder and CEO of Xealth, its first spinout. We hear about their work to change the healthcare system from the inside on this live Health Tech episode.
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation

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The Quadfather Nov 01, 2017

Todd Stabelfeldt is a pretty chill dude — he's funny, loves his dogs and is a wizard programmer. He also happens to be quadriplegic. He uses technology like Apple's Siri voice assistant and smart home devices to give him a new level of independence and control over his life. On this episode, we step — or roll — into Todd’s world and see technology through his eyes.
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation

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How tech is reinventing doctor's appointments Oct 09, 2017

Getting a doctor's appointment can be a pain. It's why people often put them off for far longer than they should, sometimes making their health much worse. Mark Long is trying to fix that. He's the VP of digital innovation at Providence St. Joseph Health, and he's developing technology like virtual doctor's visits and house calls that are as easy as calling an Uber. We speak to Mark on this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech podcast. Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health's Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation

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Using data and crowdsourcing to fight cancer Sep 14, 2017

Dr. Tony Blau saw a big problem with cancer treatment: we can’t make sense of all the data we can gather. So he founded a startup that connects experts, doctors and patients to sort through their data and build an ever-smarter cancer database. We speak with Blau on this episode of GeekWire’s Health Tech podcast.

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Health Tech: Former Amazon exec bringing tech insights to healthcare Aug 16, 2017

Everyone has an opinion on healthcare and think they know the one thing that will “solve” the system. Tech companies and innovators are no different -- but many who jump into healthcare find it’s not as straightforward as they thought. On this episode of Health Tech, we speak with Aaron Martin, a former VP at Amazon who is now bringing innovation into healthcare as an executive and tech leader at Providence St. Joseph Health. We get his take on the role and the common pitfalls of tech in health, and how innovators can have a real impact in the system.
Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group sponsors this inaugural season of our Health Tech podcast and this episode was recorded live at Providence headquarters in Seattle. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation

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Health Tech: This diabetes patient built her own artificial pancreas Jul 18, 2017

Dana Lewis has Type 1 diabetes, which means her pancreas doesn't make the insulin she needs to survive. So she built a new one. Dana is the founder of the Open Source Artificial Pancreas System, a computer system that hundreds of diabetes patients now use to automatically manage their condition. We tell Dana's story on this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast. Read more about our health and technology coverage at GeekWire.com.
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation.

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How these psychologists became app developers Jun 29, 2017

Apps can be addictive — but can they also help us kick harmful addictions? On this episode of GeekWire’s Health Tech podcast, we talk to two psychologists who are developing apps to help people quit smoking. Their journey from medical school to the tech world shows how technologies can push the boundaries of health. Follow all our coverage of health and healthcare technology at GeekWire.com
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation.

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Season 1, Ep. 2: A tiny gadget takes on a giant health problem Jun 06, 2017

Taking a pill isn’t so hard. The tricky thing is remembering to take it. Patients not taking medication properly is a huge problem for the health industry, but these three entrepreneurs think they have a solution: A gadget that can fit in the palm of your hand.
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation.

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Season 1, Ep. 1: The ultimate medical device — a smartphone Jun 02, 2017

At just 35 years old, computer scientist Shwetak Patel has made a career out of taking on "grand challenges." Now he's tackling his biggest challenge yet: health. He’s using code and some creativity to turn the smartphones we carry around every day into powerful medical devices.
Thank you to our sponsor, Providence St. Joseph Health’s Digital and Innovation Group. Follow them at twitter.com/provinnovation.

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Welcome to GeekWire's new Health Tech podcast Jun 02, 2017

An introduction to Health Tech, the new podcast from GeekWire exploring the cutting edge of digital health with some of the top innovators in the field. Co-hosted by GeekWire's Clare McGrane and Todd Bishop, and sponsored by Providence St. Joseph Health's Digital & Innovation Group.

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