Juno Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company focused on re-engaging the body's immune system to revolutionise the treatment of cancer, has acquired Stage Cell Therapeutics GmbH, a privately held biotechnology company based in Munich and Göttingen, Germany.
The transaction furthers Juno's strategy of being a world leader in process development and the manufacturing of cellular therapies. The acquisition provides Juno access to transformative cell selection and activation capabilities, next generation manufacturing automation technologies, enhanced control of its supply chain, and lower expected long-term cost of goods. Juno plans to operate the acquired company, which employs 23 scientists, engineers, and other personnel, as a wholly-owned German subsidiary under the name Juno Therapeutics GmbH.
"This important acquisition is driven by our strategy to have best in class process development and manufacturing capabilities in support of our goal of developing next generation CAR and TCR products," said Hans Bishop, chief executive officer, Juno Therapeutics.
"We welcome our new colleagues in Germany to the Juno family, and we look forward to working together to develop and commercialise best in class therapies."
"We are very excited to be part of Juno. Combining our capabilities with Juno's has the potential to accelerate our impact in the battle against cancer," said Dr Lothar Germeroth, managing director of Juno Therapeutics GmbH.
Since its founding in 2005, Stage has been translating innovative and unique science and technology into cell therapeutics. The company´s next generation cell isolation and expansion technology platforms are based on fully reversible reagents that enable the advanced isolation and expansion of T cells during the manufacturing process. Juno will invest in commercially scaling these and other technologies for incorporation into next-generation CAR and TCR product candidates.
Juno made an upfront payment of € 52.5 million in cash (approximately $59 million) and 486,279 shares of Juno stock to acquire the 95 per cent of Stage not already owned by Juno. Juno is also obligated to pay success based payments of up to €135 million based upon the achievement of development and commercialisation milestones related to novel reagents (€ 40 million), advanced automation technology (€ 65 million), and Stage's existing clinical pipeline (€ 30 million).
Juno Therapeutics is building a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on revolutionising medicine by re-engaging the body's immune system to treat cancer.
Founded on the vision that the use of human cells as therapeutic entities will drive one of the next important phases in medicine, Juno is developing cell-based cancer immunotherapies based on chimeric antigen receptor and high-affinity T cell receptor technologies to genetically engineer T cells to recognize and kill cancer.
Juno is developing multiple cell-based product candidates to treat a variety of B-cell malignancies as well as solid tumours. Several product candidates have shown compelling evidence of tumour shrinkage in the clinical trials in refractory leukemia and lymphoma conducted to date. Juno's long-term aim is to improve and leverage its cell-based platform to develop new product candidates that address a broader range of cancers and human diseases.
Juno brings together innovative technologies from some of the world's leading research institutions, including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Seattle Children's Research Institute, and The National Cancer Institute.