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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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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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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