Celgene buying T-cell tech partner Juno for $9bn

23-Jan-2018 - Last updated on 23-Jan-2018 at 09:15 GMT

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Celgene will add chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T-cell receptor (TCR) technologies through the acquisition of its immune-oncology partner Juno Therapeutics.

Celgene confirmed speculation it was buying Juno yesterday by announcing the two firms had come to an agreement to merge.

New Jersey-based Celgene will pay around $9bn (€7.4bn) for the firm, net of the nine million Juno shares it already owns in the company, valued at approximately $800m.

The firms have been working together since July 2015 when they entered into a 10-year immunotherapy partnership, valued at around $1bn.

Full ownership will place Celgene “at the forefront of future advances in the science of cellular immunotherapy,” the company said.

Along with autologous CAR T-cell pipeline boosts in the way of early-phase candidates JCAR017 for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and JCARH125 for multiple myeloma, Celgene will add Juno’s scientific platform and scalable manufacturing technologies to its cell therapy capabilities.

This includes cell selection and activation capabilities, and manufacturing automation technologies Juno picked up from German biotech Stage Cell Therapeutics GmbH in 2015.