Underscoring the hot investment prospects of cancer immunotherapy, Juno Therapeutics has secured additional funding from investors to close its Series A at $176 million, according to a company statement.
The company is developing two immunotherapy platforms to treat hematologic and solid tumor cancers and reduce the toxicity associated with chemotherapeutics.
The completion of the A round included more funding from founding investors as well as investments from Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos, and Venrock, amongst others, the statement said.
Most of Juno’s initial funding of $120 million came predominantly from technology venture capital firm ARCH Venture Partners and the Alaska Permanent Fund, through a partnership managed by Crestline Investors.
Juno also beefed up its immuno-oncology team with industry veteran Dr. Mark Frohlich. He will serve as executive vice president of R&D to oversee the company’s scientific, clinical and regulatory activities. He previously worked as chief medical officer with Dendreon Corp., which secured approval of Provenge, the first FDA-licensed active cellular immunotherapy for cancer in European and U.S. markets.
The prostate cancer vaccine became the focus of some controversy, and Dendreon has struggled to overcome reimbursement and manufacturing challenges. The company last year initiated a restructure to become a more nimble biotechnology business.
Juno also added Barney Cassidy as General Counsel who previously worked for Tessera Technologies, Inc., a semiconductor technology licensing company.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Juno represents a partnership between three cancer centers: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
Still, despite the promise of producing better outcomes from targeted therapies, the high prices these targeted drugs command continues to be a challenging issue in negotiating reimbursement. It’s basically a battle between population health and personalized medicine priorities. It’s an area that has been the subject of some debate and that’s likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
