Juno Agrees to Acquire AbVitro
January 11 2016 - 10:10AM
Dow Jones News
Juno Therapeutics Inc. agreed to acquire privately held
biotechnology company AbVitro Inc. in a cash-and-stock deal valued
at roughly $125 million and reached a preliminary deal with
collaboration partner Celgene Corp. related to the acquisition.
Juno, which develops cancer treatments that use the body's own
immune system to fight the disease, said the deal includes $78
million in cash and roughly 1.3 million shares. Juno also said it
plans to relocate AbVitro scientists to Seattle.
Juno, which went public in late 2014, said the acquisition of
Boston-based AbVitro provides it with a next-generation single cell
sequencing platform that increases its capabilities in T cell
technologies, which ramp up the power of the cells to see and
attack tumors.
Celgene Chief Scientific Officer Rob Hershberg said that "Juno's
newly acquired high throughput, single cell sequencing capabilities
have the potential to expand their current pipeline and Celgene is
excited by the opportunity to access some of these potential new
drugs."
Under the preliminary pact, Juno would license Celgene a subset
of the acquired technology and grant Celgene options to certain
related potential product rights.
Celgene agreed in June to pay Juno $150 million in upfront fees,
and purchase 9.1 million or $846.3 million of newly issued shares,
in exchange for certain options to market Juno's experimental
immunotherapy treatments. The companies were to initially focus on
treatments Juno is developing that involve genetically engineering
immune-system warriors called T cells to attack tumors, a strategy
that has shown promise in treating leukemia and other cancers of
the blood.
In an investor presentation, Juno said AbVitro's technology will
let it sift through millions of individual cells in a few hours to
identify receptors that Juno's immunity technology can attach
to.
Juno is competing against Novartis AG and Kite Pharma to develop
such cell therapy strategies.
Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 11, 2016 09:55 ET (14:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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