Celgene Conducts Deal Talks With Juno -- WSJ
January 17 2018 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Jonathan D. Rockoff, Dana Cimilluca and Dana Mattioli
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (January 17, 2018).
Celgene Corp. is in talks to buy biotechnology company Juno
Therapeutics Inc., just days after announcing another major deal to
bolster its portfolio of blood-cancer drugs.
The talks could produce a deal in the coming weeks, assuming
they don't fall apart, people familiar with the matter said. Terms
of the possible deal couldn't be learned. Juno had a market value
of about $5.5 billion as of Tuesday afternoon.
A deal would come on the heels of Celgene's agreement just over
a week ago to buy closely held Impact Biomedicines. Celgene is to
pay $1.1 billion upfront and could make billions of dollars of
additional payments if Impact hits certain milestones.
Celgene, based in Summit, N.J., is one of the biggest U.S.
biotech companies. It's known for its blood-cancer drugs, notably
top-selling product Revlimid, but has been trying to diversify its
portfolio before Revlimid loses patent protection in the U.S.
Seattle-based Juno would further boost Celgene in the market for
drugs treating multiple myeloma and other blood cancers, a market
that the company helped establish.
Juno is among the companies pioneering a new kind of cancer
treatment, known as CAR-T, that takes a patient's own immune cells,
modifies them and then sets them loose to hunt down and attack
tumors.
So far, two CAR-T treatments, short for chimeric antigen
receptor T-cell, are being sold. One is from Novartis AG and the
other is from Gilead Sciences Inc., which paid more than $10
billion for Kite Pharma Inc. and its CAR-T technology.
Doctors hail the drugs as a promising new option for some of the
most advanced, hard-to-treat cancers, and analysts expect the newly
available therapies will ring up billions of dollars in sales.
But the manufacturing and shipping of the drugs is costly and
complex, and it's unclear whether their use will be limited to
cancers affecting the production of blood cells like myeloma and
leukemia or whether they can extend to solid tumors, such as in
breast and lung cancer.
Celgene has been joining with Juno on development of its CAR-T
therapy. In 2015, the companies announced a 10-year collaboration
in which Celgene paid Juno $150 million upfront and acquired $846.3
million of shares in exchange for options to market some Juno
immunotherapy treatments.
Juno was launched in 2013, being based on discoveries by
scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Seattle
Children's Research Institute.
The biotech was one of the pioneers of CAR-T drug research, but
fell behind after five patients died in 2016 during a clinical
trial. Juno later ended the program.
Since then, the partners have been trying to catch up. Juno and
Celgene have released positive but early data for a different drug
in development to treat a form of lymphoma. The news sent Juno's
stock soaring.
Juno's most advanced CAR-T therapy in development, a leukemia
treatment best known as JCAR017, could be approved for sale in the
U.S. as early as the end of this year, the company has said.
If Juno's CAR-T pans out, Celgene's efforts to remain a big
player in the blood-cancer market would get a shot in the arm just
as the company braces for Revlimid losses. Rivals have been seeking
to sell generic versions of the multiple myeloma drug, which
accounted for $6 billion of Celgene's $9.5 billion in worldwide net
product sales during the first nine months of 2017. During the
period, Revlimid had nearly $4 billion in U.S. sales.
Celgene has been counting on new drugs like psoriasis therapy
Otezla to help boost sales, but they haven't performed as expected,
forcing the company to lower its financial outlooks.
Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com, Dana
Cimilluca at dana.cimilluca@wsj.com and Dana Mattioli at
dana.mattioli@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 17, 2018 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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