May 21, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SEATTLE – Four Seattle-area biotech firms are ramping up their hiring efforts and drawing hundreds of new employees to the Pacific Northwest’s pharmaceutical hub, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported this morning.
Juno Therapeutics is currently hiring for about 40 new positions, while Seattle Genetics, Inc. has about 100 open positions. Adaptive Biotechnologies and NanoString Technologies Inc. , which hired about 100 people last year, also announced they were hiring for a number of positions as well, the Journal reported. According to company websites, most of the open positions are in research, manufacturing, sales and administrative areas.
Seattle Genetics announced its hiring spree last month in anticipation of new growth. The company, which focuses on drugs to treat various forms of cancer, including Hodgkin’s disease, will go on the hiring spree to support coming preclinical developments, clinical trial activities and continue the commercialization of its flagship product Adcetris. Also last month analysts at TheStreet.com praised the company for its potential growth. Although the company has not shown a profit, analysts say that is likely to change as the company is “on the brink of becoming a quality growth stock, as they attempt to morph from being highly speculative to being a profitable play in the very competitive biotech sector.” One factor that the analysts pointed to is Seattle Genetics’ working relationship with some giants in the pharmaceutical industry, including AbbVie , Pfizer Inc. , Bayer and Genentech .
Juno’s hiring is likely part of the staffing plan for its proposed site in Bothell, Wash. In February Juno announced plans to open the new facility to support Juno’s planned JCAR015 multicenter clinical trial, additional clinical programs in Juno‘s pipeline and the company’s first commercial products. The new site is expected to come online sometime in 2016. Juno went public in December, making about $265 million on its initial public offering . The company was established in 2013 as a spin out of the Seattle-based nonprofit Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The company’s long-term goal is to improve and leverage its cell-based platform to develop new products that address a broad range of cancers and other diseases.
Also in February Juno made aggressive moves in rewarding its executives with large bonuses for exceeding corporate goals and expanding its talent pool with new hires. Hans Bishop, Juno’s chief executive officer, and Steve Harr, the chief financial officer, were awarded a $450,000 bonus and a $200,000 bonus respectively.
Last week Juno shelled out about $80 million in cash and stock options to acquire German cell therapy company Stage Cell Therapeutics.
Earlier in May Adaptive Biotechnologies announced it raked in $195 million in Series F financing, the largest venture capital raise in Washington State so far this year. The startup company says the financial boost will be used to fund its work studying T-cell and B-cell receptors in the immune system.
Earlier this month NanoString Technologies Inc. (NSTG) reported a loss of $14.9 million on total revenue of $11.9 million in the first quarter. Despite those losses, company officials maintained a buoyant outlook for the coming year. Company President Brad Gray said the company made “notable progress” toward meeting strategic objectives the company set for 2015.
The proposed hiring spree by the different companies is welcome news to the area since a number of biotech and pharmaceutical positions in the Seattle and Bothell areas were eliminated last year, including the loss of 600 positions after Amgen shuttered its Bothell and Seattle facilities. Additionally Albany Molecular Research, Inc. (AMRI) , which provides contract research and development services to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, closed its Bothell site in 2012, eliminating 24 positions.
While the expected growth of the Seattle-area biotech companies is welcome news, Chris Rivera, president of the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, told the Puget Sound Business Journal that recruiting to the area could be challenging due to there being fewer biotech companies in Seattle than other business hubs, including Boston and San Diego. If a position with one company does not work out, there are fewer options for lateral movement, Rivera said.
The Boston area has certainly become the poster child for a thriving biotech hub, with more companies moving to the area, or at the least opening satellite offices in the area. One of the reasons for the greater Boston area becoming such a major hub in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries is the plethora of research universities in the area. Boston also has one of the highest educated workforces in the nation. Not only are smaller companies calling the Boston area home, but many larger and established pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer Inc. , GlaxoSmithKline , Takeda Pharmaceuticals , Sanofi , Biogen Idec, Inc. and Novartis AG have presences in the city. The close proximity of so many pharmaceutical and university laboratories provides researchers and scientists easy access to clinical studies and building partnerships between companies.
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