The Jubilant-Hollisterstier plant on North Regal Street is reportedly the only manufacturer in Washington state making the COVID-19 vaccines. Its 900 local employees are capable of producing up to 500,000 doses per day.
The National Institute of Health’s (NIH) invests more than $32 billion annually in medical research to enhance life and to reduce illness and disability. NIH-funded research has led to breakthroughs and new treatments, helping people live longer, healthier lives, and building the research foundation that drives discovery.
BBC Entrepreneurial Training Center’s live Virtual Classroom has a full-day overview of the NIH SBIR/STTR grant program. In addition to up-to-date information on the SBIR/STTR programs, we’ll take a deep dive into the The Nuts and Bolts of the NIH, How to Prepare a Budget for SBIR/STTR Proposals, and the Essentials of Commercialization. This Virtual Classroom features activities and regular interaction between speakers and participants. Get your questions ready!
Visit the Life Science Washington Institute site for more information.
The HSSA Board is holding a Special Board Meeting on Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 9:30 AM. The subject of the meeting is one item, a proposal by Life Science Washington Institute (LSWI) to fund two upcoming SBIR/STTR training workshops. If you are interested in attending by Zoom, contact HSSA at susan@hssaspokane.org.
The Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County has announced its annual “Access to Care” grant competition for $150,000 for non-profit and other organizations is open for 2021 grants.
This is in addition to $240,000 in COVID-19 relief grants made by HSSA earlier this year, for $390,000 in total grants in 2020.
The HSSA Access to Care Grant Competition will award up to $150,000 in 2021 for one or more grants that increase the efficiency and efficacy of health delivery in Spokane County that measurably increases access to care for certain populations.
“HSSA’s mission is to invest in life and health sciences research and infrastructure, and to promote economic development and growth,” said Nancy L. Isserlis, Board Chair. “HSSA also invests in Access to Care grants to promote public health, which is this annual grant competition, and it also provided $240,000 in early 2020 to assist with COVID-19 needs in our community,” she said, “for a total of $390,000 in 2020 grants.”
Here are key dates related to HSSA’s 2021 Access to Care grants:
RFP posted at: September 23, 2020
Letter of Intent (LOI) due by 12 noon October 16, 2020
Final Proposal due by 4PM: November 16, 2020
Awards Announced: December 21, 2020
Applicants should submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) on the HSSA website at www.hssaspokane.org under the Grants tab. HSSA will provide a link to successful Applicants to use to submit a Final Proposal. HSSA will coordinate with Applicants directly, if required.
If an applicant’s LOI is selected, a Final Proposal would be due by November 16, 2020. In this Final Proposal, Applicants who have previously been funded by HSSA should list positive major outcomes from previous grants.
The Access to Care grant should not be confused with HSSA research grants in human capacity and infrastructure, small business SBIR/STTR matching grants, or innovative health care delivery grants. HSSA research grants are open year-round for application, and information about these grants also may be found on HSSA’s website.,
Allele Diagnostics, Photon Biosciences Receive $765,092 in HSSA Grants
Allele Diagnostics is the first local research company that has gone full circle within the Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County’s granting processes. It just received an HSSA SBIR Phase II matching grant of $500,000 last week related to Allele’s gene-centric rapid diagnostics assay. Prior to this grant, Allele had received a matching SBIR Phase I HSSA grant of $221,840 and started with a $5,000 grant-writing award.
“Allele Diagnostics is pleased to be partnered with the HSSA on this opportunity,” said Marcelo Morales, Allele Diagnostics’ Founder and CEO. “Allele Dx is committed to growing our presence in Spokane with the addition of exceptional talent that can further our vision of developing novel and innovative genetic diagnostics assays.
“HSSA is a key partner of the Spokane life sciences community and Allele Dx is thrilled to work together in advancing Spokane’s health care ecosystem,” Morales said. With the matching HSSA grant Allele Dx will have a final assay design, including probe design, software tools and implementation of laboratory methods to improve efficiency.
HSSA also granted a matching SBIR Phase I grant to Photon Biosciences LLC of $265,092 for its “Ultra-Sensitive Rapid Test for Detecting Bacterial Contamination in Platelets”. Photon also received earlier stage funding of $135,000 from HSSA.
“We believe that PBS technology will be a game-changer in the area of fluorescent probes for imaging and detection of analytes with an accuracy not possible with alternate methods,” said Chandima Bandaranayaka, Photon Biosciences CEO.
“The funding from HSSA will help us introduce our technology to solve other problems in the health care industry.” The outcome of the HSSA grant is that it allows Photon to hire and grow the company in Spokane, fully develop its PBS Microarray platform using PBS technology, apply for an SBIR Phase 11 grant and create a Phase II commercialization plan.
“Our HSSA Board’s unanimous passage of these two grants clearly meets our mission to fund scientific research and infrastructure to assist the growth of the life sciences industry in Spokane County and create economic development,” said Nancy L. Isserlis, HSSA Board Chair. “In both cases, these two start-up companies will be adding personnel.
“HSSA also holds an annual grant competition to help create access to health care through innovative and collaborative health care solutions in the County which will be announced in the late summer.”
HSSA has granted about $8 million in both research and Access to Care grants, and estimates that it has created over 500 jobs and over $100 million in total economic activity. This includes well over $35 million in extramural federal grant funding to Spokane. More information about all HSSA grants may be found at www.hssaspokane.org.
About Our Board:
Nancy Isserlis, Attorney, Winston & Cashatt and HSSA Board Chair; Michael Wilson, Consultant and HSSA Grants Committee Chair; Jason Thackston, Senior Vice President of Energy Resources, Avista Corp. and HSSA Finance Committee Chair; Ph.D.; Daryll DeWald, Ph.D, Vice President, Health Sciences and Chancellor, WSU Spokane; Allison Glasunow, Ph.D, Perkins Coie LLP; Kevin Oldenburg, Ph.D., President, 2nd Sight Bioscience; Darryl Potyk, M.D., UW/GU Regional Director of Medical Education; David J. Vachon, Ph.D., CEO/Founder, Iasis Molecular Sciences, and Dr. Francisco Velàzquez, MD.
###
The Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County announced on March 19th it would provide funding to applicant organizations serving the immediate needs and challenges of citizens and students impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Our Board saw the imminent need for financial support for organizations on the frontline of protecting our community and its citizens from the impacts,” said HSSA Board Chair Nancy Isserlis, “and on this Friday – a week later -- checks were in the mail.”
The grants are intended for those organizations that have immediate needs in serving Spokane
County citizens must be spent within the County. The grantees are as follows:
“Our belief is that some of these funded organizations have much broader reach than HSSA alone in meeting needs,” Isserlis said, “but the choice was difficult given that we had 37 responses. There remain many deserving needs to be met, and we hope that other organizations will step up, “she said.
Given the nature of the coronavirus pandemic, there will likely be more waves of health impacts and the community will need to continue to help.
For more information about HSSA visit www.hssaspokane.org. If you have further questions, contact Susan Ashe, Executive Director at HSSA at 509.474.0798 or by cell at 509.995.8356.
The HSSA Board has called a Special Board Meeting for Thursday, March 26th, to meet on the subject of funds related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its local impact. The 2 PM meeting will be held by conference call due to recent government directives.. If you wish to join the call, please contact the Executive Director at 509.995.8356 for details.
Good morning –
Please accept our apologies for all the confusion yesterday; information changed very quickly. We will schedule our conference call updates for Tuesdays and Fridays at 4:00 pm going forward.
This morning, there is a press conference scheduled for 11 a.m. in SRHD’s auditorium. Dr. Bob Lutz will address the media on new recommended guidance for events and gatherings as well as for schools. It will be live-streamed on our Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/spokanehealth/.
The community action most useful for slowing the COVID-19 bell curve is “social distancing” in schools, workplaces, events, meetings, and places where people gather. By increasing distance to at least six feet between people when possible, you reduce the person-to-person spread of infection. Social distancing can also be accomplished by discontinuing large gatherings and events.
Dr. Lutz will recommend the following guidance, starting today at 5 p.m.:
These recommendations will change as the situation with COVID-19 becomes more prevalent in Spokane County. We should expect for these recommendations to evolve into strict requirements. We are working with community partners to assess Spokane County’s status with the COVID-19 pandemic daily. We will monitor conditions and update guidance accordingly.
Disease Prevention & Response | Spokane Regional Health District
509-324-1442 phone | 509-324-3623 fax | dpr_web@srhd.org
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain proprietary, confidential or privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited and may be a violation of law. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this message to an intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the agency.SPOKANE, WA – Nancy Isserlis, Board Chair of the Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County has announced the appointments of Daryll B. DeWald, Ph.D. and Allison M. Glasunow, Ph.D., J.D., who were appointed to its nine-person board.
Daryll DeWald, Ph.D. was appointed by Governor Jay Inslee to serve a four-year term. Dr. DeWald is the Vice President of Washington State University (WSU) Health Sciences and Chancellor of WSU Health Sciences Spokane. He leads development of WSU’s rapidly growing, world-class center for health sciences education and research. DeWald joined WSU Health Sciences Spokane in September 2017 as its fourth chancellor and was named vice president for WSU’s statewide health sciences efforts in July 2019. An experienced academic leader and a successful life sciences researcher, DeWald is passionate about higher education and providing avenues for students, faculty, and staff to succeed. He oversees a downtown campus that is highly connected to Spokane’s medical community and central to Spokane’s urban growth and sustainability.
“I am very pleased to serve on HSSA’s board as I appreciate the economic impacts in our community by the investments made by HSSA in the health sciences research here that is growing quite rapidly,” said DeWald. “We would not be where we are today had it not been for early HSSA investments in researchers and core laboratories, as well as its recent investment to help stand up the Steve Gleason Institute of Neurosciences.” DeWald received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming and his doctoral degree in biochemistry from Texas A&M University.
Allison M. Glasunow, Ph.D. J.D., was appointed by the Spokane Board of County Commissioners to also serve a four-year term. Allison is an attorney with Perkins Coie and provides strategic patent counsel to large, mid and small-cap companies, start-ups, entrepreneurs, investors (venture capital, angel etc.), universities and research institutes in the life sciences and biotechnology industries. Dr. Glasunow’s practice spans the Inland Northwest, Pacific Northwest, Bay Area, across the United States and internationally. She provides strategic counseling and advising, due diligence, invalidity, analysis, competitive intelligence, patent application preparation and prosecution, and litigation support to Perkins Coie clients.
Allison has both legal expertise and laboratory research experience in immunotherapy, genetics and genomic stem cells, cancer therapies, cardiovascular therapies. clinical and research diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
Dr. Glasunow draws on over ten years of laboratory research, experience at Benaroya Institute, the University of Washington School of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Research Institute. As a Ph.D. candidate, Allison focused on cellular behavior and genetics underlying cardiovascular disease, was an American Heart Association Fellow, and recognized several times for excellence in cardiovascular research. As a post-doctoral Ph.D. fellow at the Seattle Children’s Hospital, she developed a set of molecular tools useful for cancer immunotherapies.
“Being appointed to HSSA’s prestigious Board is an honor,” Glasunow said. “HSSA is a critical element to the success of the local life sciences industry. I look forward to supporting the bustling life science sector in our community and fostering its continued growth.
“We are very pleased to welcome both Allison and Daryll to our HSSA Board,” Isserlis said.
HSSA joined WSU Spokane, Team Gleason, St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Center and Avista on January 15 to announce the new Steve Gleason Institute for Neuroscience, located close to the new pedestrian and bicycle bridge at 325 East Sprague Avenue in the University District.
Steve Gleason is a local and national hero, former football player at WSU and for the New Orleans Saints in the NFL. A husband and father, Gleason was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 2011. He continues his valiant efforts on behalf of others suffering from neurological diseases including his successful efforts to achieve Medicare modifications in the Steven Gleason Act, an Act of Congress, and was recently was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his many efforts. Other important partners in this venture are the City of Spokane, MultiCare Health, Providence Health.
This is an important investment in medical research for those who suffer from neurological diseases such as ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. HSSA was both "pleased and proud to support the Steven Gleason Institute for Neuroscience here in the University District for the important work it will do, and in recognition of one of Spokane's own sons," HSSA Board Chair Nancy Isserlis said at the launch of the institute. “This $250,000 of support was by a unanimous decision of our Board. "Isserlis went on to say that "More important, is the exciting opportunities for better treatment and care, and hopefully one day, even cures, for these debilitating diseases."
The goals of the Gleason Institute are expected to include:
