Jounce's Immunotherapy Recruiting Coup

Five years ago, there was not much happening with cancer immunotherapeutics at a commercial level. Now, almost every company with biological research capacity is working in the area. The tipping point was Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s antibody Yervoy (ipilimumab), the first and as yet only therapeutic product marketed as a “checkpoint inhibitor.” Approved by the FDA in March 2011, Yervoyinhibits a protein called CTLA-4, only recently recognized as a mechanism by which tumors can shut down the immune system and thereby protect themselves. Impeding inhibition has turned out to be an exceedingly successful approach in a subset of patients diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. Ordinarily, with a death sentence delayed only months by conventional treatments, some 22% of individuals treated with Yervoy remain alive three years later. The drug fetches $120,000 per four-injection course of treatment, and will generate over $1 billion in revenues for BMS in 2014.

A slew of cancer immunotherapy drug candidates are crowding behind Yervoy. Merck & Co. Inc.'s anti-PD-1 antibody Keytruda (pembrolizumab)...