Juno Acquires AbVitro for $125M: high-throughput and single-cell sequencing capabilities for Immune-Oncology Drug Discovery

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Juno Acquires AbVitro for $125M: high-throughput and single-cell sequencing capabilities for Immune-Oncology Drug Discovery

January 12, 2016 by 2012pharmaceutical

Juno Acquires AbVitro for $125M: high-throughput and single-cell sequencing capabilities for Immune-Oncology Drug Discovery

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Luke Timmerman reported on 1/11/2016 in Forbes that

Seattle-based Juno is announcing today that it has agreed to acquire Boston-based AbVitro, a spinout from George Church’s lab at Harvard University, for about $125 million in cash and stock. Specifically, Juno is offering $78 million in cash and 1,289,193 shares of its stock (valued at $36.39 a share at Friday’s close).

The AbVitro technology will also become part of Juno’s broader collaboration with biotech giant Celgene CELG +0.88%. The big biotech has agreed in principle to license some of the technology that’s outside of Juno’s strategic zone. Essentially, Juno and Celgene operated like a joint scouting team. Rob Hershberg, Celgene’s new chief scientific officer, said in a statement: “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.”

SOURCE

http://www.forbes.com/sites/luketimmerman/2016/01/11/juno-acquires-harvard-spinout-abvitro-for-125m-to-broaden-the-scope-of-cancer-immunotherapy/

Juno Agrees to Acquire AbVitro

January 11, 2016, 09:55:00 AM EDT By Dow Jones Business 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.
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
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