Juno CEO Hans Bishop
Juno CEO Hans Bishop

Juno Therapeutics is no stranger to huge financing deals.

The Seattle biotech company, which emerged on the scene just two years ago, raised $314 million in venture capital financing before going public in a blockbuster IPO last December that brought in another $264 million.

Now, Juno is in the process of consummating its largest deal ever, announcing today that biotech powerhouse Celgene is investing $1 billion in the highly-touted upstart as part of a complex 10-year alliance. The news sent shares of Juno soaring as executives gushed about the potential to transform cancer research.

In a conference call with financial analysts Monday afternoon, Juno CEO Hans Bishop called the deal a “transformative partnership” and noted that it “could be one of the most productive and exciting collaborations in this industry.” He added that the $1 billion deal, which includes $150 million in cash and Celgene acquiring 9.1 million shares of Juno’s stock, is an important step in growing Juno to become a “top-tier independent bio-pharma company.”

Bishop said that both Celgene and Juno have a deep conviction around the concept of the T-cell as a therapeutic, and the new cash infusion will help the companies bring together the top scientific minds to make the concept a reality much sooner.

junocelgeneJuno is developing technologies that takes a cancer patient’s T-cells, a key part of the immune system, and reprograms them using genetic engineering to fight that person’s cancer. The approach promises an alternative to radiation and chemotherapy for cancer patients.

“Our belief that the different complementary strengths of our companies really put us in a very strong position to take advantage of that therapeutic modality,” said Bishop in today’s conference call. “We both have strong independent pipelines, and we think that the scientific synergy between our groups are really going to put us in an unparalleled position to take advantage of that.”

Peter Kellogg, chief financial officer at Celgene, said the potential of the partnership is “enormous.”

“We are going to be looking very carefully at which programs can be thrown in and worked on collaboratively to create the maximum value in this area,” said Kellogg. “The logic of what we will be proposing to go into the collaboration will very much be driven by the science, and maximizing the potential in this very exciting space. It is one where, quite frankly, if you sit here today, all of that science hasn’t been done. So, our thinking will be evolving as we go forward in this collaboration, and that is why it is designed for 10 years with a really strong equity component. We are really in this together as two companies.”

Juno, which employs 123 people, will use the cash infusion to bolster its scientific team and move products into clinical trials faster.

In today’s conference call, Juno CFO Steve Harr said that they plan to accelerate their investments across the company, which may involve addition acquisitions. Juno has made two acquisitions in the past few months, purchasing Germany-based Stage Cell Therapeutics for $59 million in cash and 486,279 shares, then buying Waltham, Massachusetts-based X-BODY Inc. earlier this month.

“First and foremost, and probably most importantly, it is in the people that we are hiring. I think this will give us a greater potential to hire people with expanded capabilities. We also will hopefully move a bit faster across our pipeline and with manufacturing. And, hopefully as well, as we go out and find more assets that are outside of Juno, we will have greater opportunity to invest in business development opportunities.”

Juno is a spin out from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Its stock jumped more than 35 percent in after hours trading today.

Even with the excitement over Juno’s technology, Bishop noted that it is important to remember that things are in the early innings. “We are really at the beginning in figuring out the opportunity of how to manipulate the immune system and the T-cells specifically,” he said.

“What we believe this partnership allows us to do uniquely well is not be trapped by any one modality, but to figure out how each plays its part individually and how each plays its part in combination” Bishop said.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.