Protein design to precision health: Vote for Health Innovation of the Year at the GeekWire Awards

Finalists for the 2023 GeekWire Health Innovation of the Year.

This year’s nominees for the Health Innovation of the Year at the GeekWire Awards showcase a wide range of innovations from companies focused on diagnostics, therapeutics, digital health and precision medicine.

The companies represent the strengths of Seattle area institutions, featuring two spinouts from the University of Washington, another from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and a startup incubated within Providence. A fifth company is the brainchild of a founder previously at Pacific Northwest Research Institute (PNRI).

The category highlights pioneering health, life science, biotechnology or medical breakthroughs that hold great promise for bettering our lives or improving the healthcare system.

Last year’s winner was Truveta, which is aggregating data across multiple healthcare systems to generate insights into health and biomedical research.

The GeekWire Awards recognize the top innovators and companies in Pacific Northwest technology. Finalists in this category and others were selected based on community nominations, along with input from GeekWire Awards judges. Community voting across all categories will continue until May 1, combined with feedback from judges to determine the winner in each category.

We'll announce the winners on May 18 at the GeekWire Awards, presented by Astound Business Solutions. There are a limited number of table sponsorships available to attend the event. Contact our events team at events@geekwire.com for more information.

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Submit your votes below and keep scrolling for descriptions of each finalist for Health Innovation of the Year.

AltPep

AltPep CEO Valerie Daggett envisions a future where people are routinely screened for Alzheimer’s disease before cognitive symptoms develop, and potentially even receive preventive treatment. Last fall, the company published data showing that its experimental test could detect signs of disease in the blood of people with Alzheimer’s disease and in people who went on to develop mild cognitive impairment. The test is now on track for priority review with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The University of Washington spinout also has its sights on tests for Parkinson’s disease.

Bonum Therapeutics

Developing therapeutics that are active only where they are needed in the body has the potential to reduce toxic side effects. Good Therapeutics applied this approach to an agent that cranks up the immune response against tumors but has toxicity when administered throughout the body. Roche acquired the rights to the preclinical agent, based on a molecule called IL-2, for $250 million when it bought Good Therapeutics in 2022. The company retained its team and platform under the name Bonum (“good” in Latin), and is now moving forward with new agents with $93 million in fresh cash. Founder and and CEO John Mulligan, formerly at PNRI, also hopes to leverage a similar future buyout structure.

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Cyrus Biotechnology

Experimentally-determined structure of a bacterial protein, compared with structures produced by AlphaFold2 and OpenFold software tools. (OpenFold Image)

The protein design field continued to accelerate in 2022 with the honing of artificial intelligence tools and the development of new ones. To capitalize on the wave of innovation, Cyrus Biotechnology, a spinout of the UW’s Institute for Protein Design, helped found a consortium to support open-access development of protein folding and design software. “It doesn’t make sense for all of us to replicate the same work,” Cyrus CEO Lucas Nivon told GeekWire. Cyrus works with industry partners to develop new protein therapeutics or generate customized software packages. Projects include generating new IL-2 based therapies in partnership with Selecta Biosciences, and developing protein agents that take aim at COVID-19.

DexCare

Since spinning out of Providence in 2021, DexCare has signed up healthcare partners Mass General Brigham, Kaiser Permanente and others. DexCare’s software platform helps manage health system capacity and appointment booking, navigating patients to the most appropriate care setting. The company says its software can be accessed by up to 25% of the U.S. population and results in a 40% increase in physician capacity through better scheduling. DexCare raised $50 million in 2022, recently bought commerce platform Womp, and anticipates bringing additional e-commerce, marketing and advertising expertise on board through additional acquisitions.

SEngine Precision Medicine

SEngine’s Paris Test to identify treatments for an individual’s tumor. (SEngine Image)

SEngine aims to personalize cancer therapy through its “Paris Test,” designed to assess which drugs a patient is likely to respond to. The test starts with a live sample of tumor tissue extracted during a biopsy that is sent to the company’s Seattle lab. The company grows cells from the tissue and assesses their response to an array of drugs to find the therapies with the strongest anti-tumor activity. The company has more than 240 candidates in its drug library, and can test a wide range of solid tumor types, from breast to pancreatic cancer. The approach is designed to reduce guess work about a patient’s best treatment course and uncover options that are not evident from clinical signs and more conventional testing. The Paris Test recently became available in all 50 states.

Thanks to gold-level and category sponsors: Wilson Sonsini, JLL, Blink, BECU, Baird, Fuel Talent, RSM, Talent Reach, WTIA, Meridian Capital, Bank of America, and T-Mobile. And thanks to silver level sponsors: First Tech, Remitly, Fuel Talent, and SolluCIO Partners.

If interested in sponsoring a category or purchasing a table sponsorship for the event, contact us at events@geekwire.com.