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Juno (JUNO) acquires high throughput single cell sequencing capabilities

January 11, 2016 9:30am

Acquires Harvard spinout, AbVitro, for $125 M to advance cancer immunotherapies

With an agreement in principle to license certain AbVitro technology rights and grant certain product option rights to Celgene (CLGN)

JUNO and CLGN have agreed in principle to enter into an agreement to license Celgene a subset of the acquired technology and to grant CLGN options to certain related potential product rights emanating from the acquired technology.

· AbVitro’s technology allows for the identification of fully-human, natively paired T cell receptors (TCRs) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T binders directly from cancer patients;

· This capability, which allows for the interrogation of millions of single cells per experiment, enables the generation of binders that recognize known targets as well as the discovery of novel cancer antigen targets;

· JUNO will also use the technology for translational assays to provide a better understanding of the natural immune response to cancer as well as to interrogate and monitor the immune system of cancer patients during treatment.

JUNO intends to relocate the AbVitro scientists to Seattle and incorporate this platform into its therapeutic discovery process.

· In connection with the transaction, AbVitro co-founder and Harvard Medical School Professor George Church will become a scientific consultant to JUNO.

· Jeffrey Ostrove, Ph.D., former CEO of AbVitro, will also become a consultant to Juno.

The Bottom Line: The acquisition provides Juno with a leading next-generation single cell sequencing platform that will augment Juno’s capabilities to create engineered T cells against a broad array of cancer targets. JUNO is offering $78 M in cash and 1,289,193 shares of its stock (valued at $36.39 a share at Friday’s close).

JUNO is trading UP +4.64% or +$1.69 to $38.08 having closed at $36.39 and opened UP +$0.23 to $36.62

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