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-- WITH PHOTO -- TO MEDICAL, NATIONAL, AND SCIENCE EDITORS:
Juno Completes $176M Series A Round
SEATTLE, April 24, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Juno Therapeutics,
a biotechnology company focused on bringing forward novel
immunotherapies for cancer, today announced the close of its Series A
round with $176M in fully committed funds.
Juno's initial funding of $120 million came predominantly from leading
technology venture capital firm ARCH Venture Partners and the Alaska
Permanent Fund, through a partnership managed by Crestline Investors.
The completion of the A round includes expansions from founding
investors as well as investments from Bezos Expeditions, the personal
investment company of Jeff Bezos, and Venrock, amongst others.
"Juno's Series A round provides significant resources to support truly
transformative science," said Hans Bishop, CEO of Juno. "Juno's
approach to cancer immunotherapy brings together world-class clinical,
business and regulatory skills necessary to make a game changing
impact on cancer treatment. We couldn't be more thankful for the
enthusiasm and support Juno is generating."
In addition, Juno announced two major appointments to its leadership
team.
Mark W. Frohlich, M.D., has been appointed to be Executive Vice
President of R&D. In this role he will oversee the company's
scientific, clinical and regulatory activities.
Barney Cassidy will serve as General Counsel. He will lead Juno's
legal affairs including corporate, intellectual property, litigation
and compliance matters.
"These appointments come at an exciting time for Juno," said Bishop.
"I am delighted to have the benefit of Mark and Barney's capable
leadership."
Dr. Frohlich stated, "Immunotherapy is transforming the practice of
oncology. I am incredibly excited to join the outstanding team at Juno
to advance its pipeline of highly promising cellular therapies for
cancer."
"I admire both the scientific breakthroughs of Juno's investigators
and the compelling vision of Juno's founders," said Barney Cassidy.
"I'm really looking forward to working with the entire team to
develop, commercialize, and make widely available cancer therapies
that emerge from these extraordinary breakthroughs."
BIOS
Dr. Mark W. Frohlich, M.D. has more than two decades of experience in
the field of immuno-oncology. He recently served as the Executive Vice
President of R&D and Chief Medical Officer of Dendreon Corp., where he
led teams responsible for the U.S. and European approval of Provenge,
the first FDA licensed active cellular immunotherapy for cancer. Prior
to joining Dendreon, he served as Vice President of Xcyte Therapies,
where he pursued the development of an autologous T-cell therapy for
cancer. Dr. Frohlich is a board-certified medical oncologist. He
received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and did his
post-doctoral training in Internal Medicine and Oncology at the
University of California, San Francisco. He subsequently served on the
faculty there, where he was active in translational and clinical
research. He has a B.S. from Yale University in Electrical Engineering
and Economics.
Bernard J. "Barney" Cassidy received his J.D. from Harvard Law School,
where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a research
assistant to Professor Arthur R. Miller, focusing on Federal Practice
and Procedure. After law school Mr. Cassidy clerked for the Honorable
John T. Noonan, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit. He later practiced law at both Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher
& Flom and at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, where on a pro bono
basis he led the medical and mental health elements of a class action
on behalf of Pelican Bay State Prison inmates that successfully
challenged the constitutionality of prison conditions and practices in
the landmark case of Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F.Supp. 1146 (N.D. Cal.
1996). Mr. Cassidy later served as general counsel of two public
companies, Tumbleweed Communications Corp., a provider of secure
messaging and secure file transfer solutions, and Tessera
Technologies, Inc., a semiconductor technology licensing company,
where he was President of Tessera Intellectual Property Corp. He is a
nationally recognized expert on patent licensing and patent policy,
having testified twice on these topics before Congress, and is
frequently invited to speak about the perspective of inventors within
our innovation economy, at, for example, the joint workshop on patent
and competition policy held by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S.
Department of Justice, and the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and
most recently at the 2014 Judicial Conference of the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California.
About Juno
Juno is a clinical stage company that brings together three of the
world's leading cancer centers - Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle Children's
Research Institute - in unique partnership to advance a broad pipeline
of potential curative immunotherapy treatments. Juno will build on
breakthroughs in the design of novel immunotherapies to develop two
distinct and complementary platforms - chimeric antigen receptors
(CARs) and T-cell receptors (TCRs). The CAR technology is designed to
target cell surface antigens that are expressed on cancer cells. In
addition, the high-affinity TCR technology can also detect alterations
in intracellular proteins present in tumor cells. These treatments
have the potential to reduce longer-term toxicities associated with
current chemotherapeutics. Juno's goal is to drive multiple product
candidates in select hematologic and solid tumor cancers to FDA
licensure. Each candidate has the potential to treat a variety of
high-risk cancers.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140113/DC45426LOGO
SOURCE Juno Therapeutics
-0- 04/24/2014
/CONTACT: Alissa Brenner, The Glover Park Group, abrenner@gloverparkgroup.com, 202-295-0121
/Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140113/DC45426LOGO
CO: Juno Therapeutics
ST: Washington
IN: HEA MTC BIO
SU: SVY
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-- DC11803 --
0000 04/24/2014 12:00:00 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com
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