Date: 2016-01-11
Type of information: Company acquisition
Acquired company: AbVitro (USA - MA)
Acquiring company: Juno Therapeutics (USA - WA)
Amount:
Terms: * On January 11, 2016, Juno Therapeutics announced that it has acquired AbVitro, a privately held biotechnology company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The acquisition provides Juno with a leading next-generation single cell sequencing platform that will augment Juno’s capabilities to create best-in-class engineered T cells against a broad array of cancer targets. Juno and Celgene Corporation have agreed in principle to enter into an agreement to license Celgene a subset of the acquired technology and to grant Celgene options to certain related potential product rights emanating from the acquired technology.
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 consideration for the AbVitro acquisition was approximately $78 million in cash and 1,289,193 shares of Juno stock. Juno and Celgene have agreed in principle to enter into an agreement to license Celgene a subset of the acquired technology and to grant Celgene options to certain related potential product rights emanating from the acquired technology.
Details: 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. AbVitro’s technology platform accelerates the development of novel immunotherapies by identifying cancer-specific immune cells from natural immune responses at unprecedented resolution. Based on technology developed by the George Church at Harvard Medical School, the technology allows for the identification of full-length, natively paired antibodies and T cell receptors across millions of single cells simultaneously from patient tumor or blood samples. The platform enables the discovery of novel cancer specific targets and the development of monoclonal antibodies, antibody drug conjugates, TCRs and CAR-T immunotherapies.
Related: cell therapy cancer - oncology
