Embracing Rival Programs, Juno Ventures Forth With Talk Of Cancer Cure

09 Dec 2013

• By Paul Bonanos and Alex Lash

The richly funded start-up is an unlikely collaboration between rival oncology research centers, both with immunotherapy programs that require complicated cell therapy processes. Coming together under one roof doesn’t mean the competition has ended.

Cancer immunotherapy has attracted a lot of attention in recent years, but perhaps the greatest concentration of science in the field – backed with hundreds of millions of venture dollars – is under the roof of newly launched Juno Therapeutics. The start-up brings together two approaches to cancer immunotherapy and plans to develop the technologies in parallel, according to its lead investor.

The launch, unveiled Dec. 3, comes more than a year after Novartis AG took exclusive license of a prominent...