washington business
Seahawks Announce $500,000 in Grants from Players Equality
& Justice for All Action Fund
The Seattle Seahawks
announced in June
they will give away
$500,000 from the
Seahawks Players
Equality & Justice
for All Action Fund
following the “unacceptable
act of
violence” against
George Floyd in Minneapolis
and countless
others who died in a
similar manner.
The Seahawks
Players Equality & Justice for All Action Fund was created in 2017 as a way for
Seahawks players to help “create lasting change and build a more compassionate
and inclusive society.”
The recipients of the $500,000 grants have not been decided, but the team
said they “hope to advance conversations related to reformation in our nation’s
current policies regarding hiring and training within law enforcement, judiciary
protections and accountability, and for advanced education related to the history
of race in America.”
In a separate statement, quarterback Russell Wilson said “We cannot
continue to ignore racism as though it has ended, or never happened. The
continual violence inflicted upon blacks and people of color must stop. We
need change now. We need love. We need compassion. We need grace and
forgiveness even in the midst of this pain. We need true leadership. We need
justice. We need equality.”
Seattle’s Athira Pharma Lands $85 Million in Financing for
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Cure
Athira Pharma announced in June that it had raised $85 million in Series B
financing to support its research for cures for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
disease.
The company is entering a key phase
of testing on its NDX-1017 drug, which
has the potential to not only slow the
progression of Alzheimer’s, but to
restore brain function.
“What was good for us here was that
we had a really good story,” President
and CEO Leen Kawas said. “We had fantastic data and a huge medical need —
Alzheimer’s patients. It was very obvious that despite the macro environment
changes, there is still a huge medical need in Alzheimer’s, and the intrinsic value
of the work that we’re doing was still there.”
The $85 million in funding, at the upper end of what it had hoped for, will
enable more comprehensive trials, a doubling of its 17-employee staff, and work
on other of its less-developed drug candidates.
AWB featured the company (then known as M3 Biotechnology) in our Grow
Here campaign and named Kawas AWB’s inaugural Entrepreneur of the Year
during the 2016 Evening of Excellence awards gala.
summer 2020
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