December 16, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Seattle-based startup Juno Therapeutics has upped the terms of its much anticipated initial public offering, saying in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Tuesday that it will price its IPO at as much as $212 million, up from $166 million last week—making it the biggest biotech IPO of the year.
At $15 to $18 dollars per share to between $21 and $23 per share, Juno could raise as much as $244 million if underwriters decide to sell 1.3 million shares.
Juno will set the price for good on Dec. 18 and make its IPO Dec. 19. The spinoff from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Research Institute said last month it would go public. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley will act as lead bookrunners on the deal.
Juno joins a long list of gene therapy biotechs attempting to IPO this year; the company uses human T cells to help fight cancer. Its main therapies are based on T Cell Receptors (TCR) and Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CAR) and include chimeric antigen receptor drug candidates JCAR 014, JCAR015, and JCAR017. The firm reported intriguing clinical trial results at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology on Dec. 8.
“The tumor response rates and duration observed in these ongoing studies remain encouraging as we advance our lead product candidates in hematological malignancies,” said Juno CEO Hans Bishop at the time.
Juno’s initial filing showed it is aware of the market risks involved.
“Our longer-term goal is to revolutionize medicine through the application of cell-based therapies,” the company writes in its SEC filing. “In particular, we believe that genetically-engineered T cells have the potential to meaningfully improve survival and quality of life.”
Juno will need every penny of its IPO coffers and existing $314 million in venture funding from Arch Venture Partners, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and largest stakeholder Alaska Permanent Fund, which owns 34 percent of the venture.
“Our very short history as an operating company makes any assessment of our future success or viability subject to significant uncertainty,” the company writes. “We will encounter risks and difficulties frequently experienced by early-stage companies in rapidly evolving fields. If we do not address these risks successfully, our business will suffer.”
Juno had only $237 million in cash on the books as of Sept. 30.
Earlier this month it beefed up its intellectual property portfolio by agreeing to pay Connecticut-based Opus Bio $20 million and 1.6 million shares of Juno stock in exchange for an exclusive license to patents and data related to various human monoclonal antibodies and their use in immunotherapy.
