Pathway Medical Gets Traction, Ekos Raises $12.5M, ZymoGenetics Sales Boss Departs, & More Seattle-Area Life Sciences News

with a $1 million milestone payment from San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals. MDRNA is running dangerously low on cash, and has cut employee wages.

—MolecularMD, a Portland, OR-based cancer diagnostics company co-founded by star researcher Brian Druker, said this week it has raised $3 million in venture capital.

—CMC Icos, a contract manufacturer of biotech drugs in Bothell, WA, said it is cutting 7.5 percent of its workforce, or 11 jobs. The company, which has put off plans to double in size, will now have about 130 employees, a spokesman says.

—AVI Biopharma, the Portland, OR-based biotech company developing a treatment for the U.S. government to fight the Ebola virus, said it raised $16.5 million by selling 14.2 million new shares of stock. Eastbourne Capital Management is one of its new investors.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.