Seattle's biotech startups and the Fred Hutch 👩‍🔬

Putting together the Pacific Northwest unicorn chart, I was surprised to learn that ~10% of the PNW unicorns over the last two decades have been biotech companies – Juno Therapeutics (acquired for $9B), Adaptive Biotechnologies ($5B market cap), and Seattle Genetics ($13B market cap.)

Notably, both Juno and Adaptive were spin-outs from the Fred Hutch. Most people in tech world don’t know too much about the Hutch, so here is a very quick primer on some of their most famous work:

Fred Hutch researchers were the pioneers of bone marrow transplants to treat patients with certain cancers, an approach that provided the first proof that the immune system can be harnessed to fight cancer. That led to today’s immunotherapies, which are improving lives and changing the way doctors approach this disease.

If you’ve read anything about immunotherapies or programming white blood cells to attack cancer cells, that’s what Juno does. Adaptive Biotechnologies also focuses on the immune system, but their technology uses DNA sequencing machines to analyze immune cells for early indications of cancer and other diseases.

There are now three dozen spin-outs working to commercialize Hutch research, and it’s exciting to see the intersection of computer, data, and life sciences research happening in Seattle. For example, Microsoft partnered with Adaptive to develop their AI-driven blood test, and UW researchers are using biology to make better computers.

(If you want to learn more about the Hutch’s journey to find a cure for cancer, the Seattle Times wrote a great feature about their history last year.)

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