Juno debuts with $120 million

Cancer immunotherapy play Juno Therapeutics Inc. (Seattle, Wash.) debuted on Wednesday with $120 million in a series A round co-led by Arch Venture Partners and the Alaska Permanent Fund, through a partnership with Crestline Investors. The company said the round is not milestone-based, but declined to disclose details.

Juno is designing and developing immunotherapies based on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T cell receptor (TCR) technology. Juno's technology is based on research out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Seattle Children's Research Institute. Prior to Juno, MSKCC was the lone unpartnered academic player with a significant presence in the CAR space (see SciBX: Science-Business eXchange, Oct. 24). ...