A recent agreement between several pharmaceutical companies and a global vaccine alliance has lowered the cost of preventing cervical cancer globally, and has given Fred Hutch a reason to celebrate. The agreement, signed in May, means that both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have agreed to retail their HPV vaccines in developing countries for less than $5 a dose, which will put the vaccine within reach of vastly more of the world’s population. Currently, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in the world, killing 275,000 people per year, and thelink between HPV and cervical cancer is very clear, particularly at Fred Hutch.

The vaccines were made possible in part by major contributions from Dr. Denise Galloway and her colleagues at Fred Hutch. The work they did showed that HPV is associated with almost all of the genital-tract cancers, and with many of the head and neck cancers, and also went on to identify how HPV causes cancer. In developing nations, where over 85 percent of cervical cancer deaths occur yearly, the need for the vaccine is strong; thanks to this agreement, it’s going to be available.

The Paris Air Show commenced this morning in France, gathering industry leaders, representatives from the many aero supply chains, and delegations from around the world. The Washington-born Boeing Company has a large showcase and is expected to unveil the new 787-10 model at some point. Already, Qatar Airways has reportedly ordered nine of Boeing’s 777-300 extended range airplanes, and GE Capital Aviation Services ordered ten 787-10X models at the airshow.

Growth in the commercial airline industry is predicted to soar in the next 10 to 20 years with demand for aircraft replacements, technological improvements in planes’ fuel efficiency, and other advancements in new models. As a worldwide industry leader, Boeing brings in billions of dollars annually to Washington State’s economy and creates many manufacturing and STEM-related jobs.

Also present at the Paris Air Show is Airbus, which has plans to display its A350 XWB model, competing with Boeing in wide-bodied planes.

The Trade Development Alliance’s International Leadership Mission is currently taking place in Paris and will be attending the Paris Air Show.

EarthCorps volunteers from around the world are currently learning about the environment right here in Seattle. Through a curriculum that focuses on the ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest and habitat restoration, they’re developing the skills to coordinate and lead environmental efforts around the world.

EarthCorps, based in Seattle, was founded in 1993 with the explicit mission of building a global community of leaders through local environmental service. The program is an intensive yearlong course that sees volunteers from over 80 countries come to the region to learn best practises, community involvement in environmental efforts, and leadership skills. The program sees over 10,000 volunteers a year.

Lest anyone think that EarthCorps’ efforts are purely local in scale, there’s a graduate whose environmental models are being used by the United Nations. The leadership and skills the organization provides are clearly influencing both a generation and a globe.

Socrata, a Seattle-based social data company, was one of the sponsors of the first National Day of Civic Hacking, held June 1-2. Over 11,000 people participated in the event, which was geared toward building technologies to help local, state, and the federal government solve problems for the betterment of the communities. However, Socrata’s reach is far beyond the domestic.

A pioneer in the field of social data – developer of a data sharing platform with social features to enable non-specialists to understand complicated data and to give access to other users who might be facing, or solving, the same issues – Socrata shifted to the public sector at the same time the “open data” movement really started to take off. While there have been impressive results domestically, including Socrata’s involvement in the federal open data site, data.gov, there has also been significant adoption internationally, with customers as diverse as the City of Edmonton and the World Bank using Socrata’s platform and tools. Pricing for the subscriptions has thus far meant that many smaller towns aren’t able to afford the cost, but Socrata expects to change that as they rework their engineering and the concomitant costs.

The focus of the company is not solely on the subscription side; a future project may allow Yelp to attach health inspection reports to online reviews, and another may seee Socrata aggregating and packaging certain sorts of statistics. They have been contacted in the past by insurance companies wanting detailed, zip-code level crime stats, among other requests.

The 2013 Trade Development Alliance Annual Dinner is over, but you can re-live the glory thanks to the Seattle Channel! http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5211333&file=1

You’ll want to check out Governor Jay Inslee’s speech on international trade as well as a lightening round session that got everyone on their feet. Of course, we also featured a panel of experts sharing their take on the future of the international economy: Len Jordan of Madrona Ventures, Jon Talton of the Seattle Times, Jeff Frazier of Microsoft and moderator Bill McSherry of Boeing.

Most importantly, this event supports your regional trade organization – the Trade Development Alliance – and the Bill Stafford Internship Fund. The Fund allows us to provide paid internships to Washington state college and university students here at TDA.

The Annual Dinner kicked off our year-long competition that all tables are participating in. We’ll be updating table standings against actual data throughout the year on our Annual Dinner page throughout the year. Check back for updates, and thank you for your support!

National Small Business Week runs this year from June 17 to June 21, as a way to recognise the contributions made by America’s entrepreneurs. More than half of the American work force either own or work for a small business, and small businesses are responsible for creating approximately two out of every three new jobs in the US every year.

The official celebration of National Small Business Week, organised by the Small Business Administration, this year takes place in five cities around the country, but the focus is on far more than merely the domestic aspect of small businesses. One of the Monday panels, “Growing and Going Global”, is appropriately taking place in Redmond, on the Microsoft campus, and features Greater Seattle’s international heavy hitters, including Pru Balatero from SBA’s International Finance Programs, Doug Kemper from EFACW, and John Brislin of the ExIm Bank.

The panel will be livestreamed; join in and let Greater Seattle help you grow your business internationally. More information can be found at the SBA’s website for National Small Business Week

On June 12th, Filson will celebrate the grand opening of their new World Headquarters and Manufacturing Facility. Last fall, the company purchased the Star Building, a 52,000 square foot structure in Sodo that now houses Filson’s corporate offices and possibly some manufacturing.

However, the company intends to maintain their retail location on Fourth Avenue, rather than close it, as it has become a destination for shoppers, and a very successful one. Consequently, opening the new headquarters more than doubles the company’s square footage in the Sodo area.

Filson is known for the quality of its brand, and its durability is certainly attested in recent marketing campaigns such as the one crafted for the Filson 1897 Collection, and the “What’s Your Favorite Filson?” campaign, built around the return to the company of a 16-year-old pair of double-tin pants, worn by an Oregon glazier. Filson saw it as an opportunity to let their customers do the talking, explaining why they love the brand so much.

The Port of Everett is expecting to award the contract this month for the final phase of cleanup in the Everett Shipyard upland, which is a key six-acre site in the heart of the Marina district. The land cleanup portion is expected to take between six and eight months, wrapping up in early 2014, at which time the Port will shift its focus to the water portion. That phase will include dredging to remove contaminated soil and removing old equipment. The final phase, adding public walkways and realigning the marina slips, will be initiated when the in-water phase is complete, and will be done with an eye toward the Marina District Development Strategy, which provides for the construction of a mix of housing, restaurants, and hospitality, and improvements to the marina overall.

Port of Seattle has recently joined the Green Marine program, the largest voluntary environmental program for the maritime industry in North America, and is the first US port outside of the Great Lakes region to do so.  Becoming a signatory means that the port is committed to addressing and reducing its environmental footprint through key meansures and concrete actions, such as air emissions and environmental leadership. In a sign of the program’s relevance and community support, more than 40 environmental groups and government agencies have endorsed and help shape the program, with the aid of academics and marine industry representatives.  Green Marine fits in perfectly with the Port of Seattle’s reputation as the Green Gateway, offering the lowest carbon footprint for cargo shipped by sea and rail from Asia to the Midwest.

At the Port of Tacoma, the progress on the port’s 10 year goals is being praised, and deservedly so. On the environmental side of things, the port has decreased diesel pollutants by nearly 24% in the last year, putting them on track to achieve their goal of 85% reduction by 2022. This goal will be aided by the use of natural gas in the Alaska trailership company TOTE and the efforts that shipowners are making to reduce the use of sulphur-based fuels.  The port also has a significant land cleanup goal of 200 more acres by 2021. They did not do any cleanup this year, but did make preparations for cleaning well over 100 acres in 2014, which will put the port far ahead of schedule to meet their 200 acre goal.

Microsoft recently announced a significant increase in hiring in their Chinese division, and has reaffirmed its commitment to offering cloud computing services in China, a smart move given that the Chinese market is the fastest-growing market for Windows Phone and its associated services.  The cloud computing push also includes a public preview of corporate cloud service Azure, to begin next month.

Microsoft is well aware of the potential for growth in the Chinese market; the population is not currently as connected as the American market, and the growth is almost certain to be explosive within the next few years. Microsoft’s commitment to being in position to leverage that growth is unmistakable; on top of its other efforts, the company has purchased a flagship store on Tmall to offer consumers over 50 Microsoft products.  Microsoft is also planning to increase Chinese R&D spending to $575 million annually, and is planning as well to develop China-specific apps with local partners.

A £6.5 million project has been awarded to Dundee University’s Drug Discovery Unit by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, with the intention of creating a center for lead optimisation for developing-world diseases, primarily tuberculosis. The project is funded for five years from this grant.

Tuberculosis has been selected as the primary focus because it is the world’s second-leading infectious killer, is disproportionately found in developing countries, and its current therapies are generally inadequate; using current treatments, a case of TB can take up to six months to be cured, which leads to high treatment defaults, which increases drug resistance and disease transmission.

Lead optimisation is part of the drug discovery process, a crucial stage where early leads in treatment are improved through development cycles, in an effort to get to drugs that are promising enough to test further.  There is consistently a bottleneck in the labor-intensive lead optimisation stage, and this project is an effort to ameliorate that.