The 2025 GeekWire Award finalists for Health Innovation of the Year are dominated by ventures that aim to outwit cancer with groundbreaking new technologies. The contenders range from a newly formed startup to a leading U.S. cancer institute and companies in between. Joining the cohort is a business with technology to help healthcare providers better manage appointments and access to providers.This awards category recognizes pioneering health, life science, biotechnology or medical breakthroughs that hold great promise for improving peoples’ lives and enhancing the healthcare system.The finalists are Archon Biosciences, DexCare, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Talus Bioscience and Umoja Biopharma.Last year’s winner was CalmWave, a Seattle health-tech startup that created a system for making sense of the alarms triggered by the devices that monitor hospital ICU patients.Continue reading for details on each of this year’s finalists, and vote here or below.Archon BiosciencesArchon Biosciences emerged from stealth last October with $20 million in funding. The Seattle biotech company is running with technology developed in the lab of University of Washington biochemist and Nobel Prize winner David Baker.Archon’s proprietary protein structures, known as Antibody Cages or AbCs, combine two biomedical tools — naturally occurring antibodies and custom-designed proteins — to create a single new protein structure. These protein structures, or AbCs, are optimized with the aid of generative AI to travel in the body in controllable ways and engage with target cells in a more specific manner.“What we like to say is, it’s not whether you’re given a drug, it’s how you’re given it,” said CEO and co-founder James Lazarovits

Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@geekwire.comCathy Smith, CFO of Starbucks. (LinkedIn Photo)— Starbucks announced Cathy Smith as its chief financial officer. Smith was most recently at Nordstrom for two years, and has held CFO roles at Bright Health, Target, Express Scripts, Walmart and others. Her longest role was at the defense and space juggernaut Raytheon.Smith succeeds Rachel Ruggeri, who was at Starbucks for more than two decades, ascending to the CFO role in 2021.The coffee giant announced layoffs of 1,100 corporate employees, including 612 in Seattle. It marks one of Starbucks’ largest layoffs and comes as CEO Brian Niccol turns to tech to help turn around the slumping business after taking over in September.— Avanade, a Seattle-based tech consulting and services company, announced a slate of C-suite hires