washington business
In Their Words
Leen Kawas is CEO and co-founder of M3 Biotechnology, a Seattle-based bio-technology company working on a
cure for neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The company has completed testing
on animals and is preparing to begin clinical trials on humans in 2016 with a goal of one day manufacturing an
oral pill that reverses the course of Alzheimer’s disease. Kawas participated in a panel discussion on business
leadership at AWB’s Policy Summit in September. Washington Business Executive Editor Jason Hagey spoke
with her following the summit about M3’s mission
and what it’s like to run a biotechnology company in
Washington state.
What is the mission of M3 Biotechnology?
M3 Biotechnology is an emerging bio-pharma
company that is working on therapies that address
huge unmet medical needs, focusing today on
Alzheimer’s disease. The technology that we’re
working on is expected to reverse the course
of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative
diseases like Parkinson’s. We are even projecting
this technology could penetrate other indications
like MS and ALS, a huge unmet medical need that
affects every one of us directly or indirectly, and
me personally as well. Not me, but I have been
impacted in my family with neurodegenerative
disease. The therapies we are trying to develop
Leen Kawas
are not only symptomatic relief therapies; they are
actually real solutions, feasible, and inexpensive.
This is the goal of the company, as well as
How have things changed for your company since
providing therapies that are available to everyone. So the
2011?
ultimate product will be an oral pill that the patient will take.
The incorporation happened in 2011, but the real start
It is expected to grow back lost brain cells.
happened early last year. Basically what happened was the
technology was developed at Washington State University,
So, not just stop the disease, but actually reverse it?
in Joe Harding’s lab. I was one of the people who worked
Yes, it’s expected to reverse it. The animal models we have
briefly on the techn