It was a very slow week for deals in the Northwest, with layoffs and other bad news dominating the headlines. But there were still a few deals in biotech, software, and e-commerce.
—The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle raised more than $2.2 million in donations for its research programs at its annual holiday gala, as Luke Timmerman reported. More than half the money, $1.2 million, will be used to expand immunotherapy clinical trials in the late stages of disease.
—Seattle-based nonprofit PATH is investing $3 million in a vaccine candidate against pandemic flu, as Luke reported. The vaccine, which is intended to mimic “bird flu,” is being developed by Gaithersburg, MD-based Lentigen.
—Microsoft (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MSFT]]) and Hopkinton, MA-based storage giant EMC (NYSE: [[ticker: EMC]]) expanded their partnership to improve data security for customers across networks and data centers, as our Boston colleague Ryan McBride reported. The deal, whose financial terms were not disclosed, will put technology from EMC’s security division, RSA, into certain Microsoft products, such as Windows Server 2008.
—Seattle-based Amazon completed its acquisition of Victoria, BC-based AbeBooks, an online marketplace for used and rare books. The deal was originally announced August 1. With this purchase, Amazon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMZN]]) also owns 40 percent of LibraryThing, a literary social site based in Cambridge, MA, that competes with Seattle-based Shelfari (another recent Amazon acquisition).
—Not a deal, but words of wisdom from two of Seattle’s most prominent deal-makers. Luke did an exclusive interview with Alan Frazier, founder of Seattle-based Frazier Healthcare Ventures. Frazier discussed why the traditional venture model is broken, and what companies need to do to adapt. And I sat in on a great talk by Nick Hanauer, founding partner of Seattle-based Second Avenue Partners and an early investor in Amazon, as he spoke about how to spot breakthrough ideas and companies.
