Juno Therapeutics Inc. JUNO is on a roll with its shares climbing 6.6% after it announced the acquisition of a privately held biopharmaceutical company, X-BODY, Inc. in a cash and stock transaction.
With this acquisition, Juno has gained access to X-BODY’s discovery platform. The technology will be used to create novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR T) and high-affinity T cell receptor cancer immunotherapies.
The cash and stock deal is valued at about $21 million in cash and 439,265 shares of Juno’s stock. In addition to this, Juno has agreed to make success-based payments in cash depending on the achievement of certain research, clinical and regulatory related milestones for products that will be generated using X-BODY’s technology plus certain additional cash payments following the commercialization of the same.
The latest acquisition is Juno's second in as many months. Last month, the company acquired a privately held German biotech company, Stage Cell Therapeutics.
Juno has been active on the partnering front too. The company recently collaborated with Editas Medicine on CRISPR – CAR T technology and also inked deals with AstraZeneca AZN and Fate Therapeutics FATE among others.
Meanwhile, Juno continues to progress with its pipeline. Late last week, Juno reported encouraging results from a phase I study on JCAR014 (non-Hodgkin lymphoma) and JCAR015 (acute lymphoblastic leukemia). Data were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Juno currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Actelion Ltd. ALIOF is also a favorably ranked stock in the health care sector carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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