Juno Therapeutics Files For IPO

Juno Therapeutics Files For IPO

November 17, 2014

By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Editor

Cancer therapy startup Juno Therapeutics Inc. has filed an S-1 form with regulators for an initial public offering with a fundraising target of $150 million, the company said Monday.

The Seattle-based company did not disclose how many shares would be sold or at what price point. It said it will list its common stock on NASDAQ under the ticket JUNO. J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Co and Morgan Stanley will act as bookrunners on the offering, while Leerink Partners LLC will act as a co-manager.

If it manages to hit its proposed target, Juno’s deal size would make it the year's second largest biotech IPO, behind Forward Pharma ’s, which raked in $221 million. The year's largest market capital IPO belongs to Fibrogen at $1.2 billion. Both companies went public in the fourth quarter.

Thus far, Juno has raised $310 million in three rounds of funding from Bezos Expeditions, Venrock, Alaska Permanent Fund and ARCH Venture Fund VII LP. Arch currently holds a stake of around 15 percent in the company, while research institute Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center owns 5.17 percent.

The clinical stage research firm focuses on cell-based cancer immunotherapies that genetically engineer white blood cells, or "T" cells, to target and eradicate cancer. It had a rough 2013 so far, reporting a net loss of $119 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30.

This fall has seen a heavy lineup of biotech IPOs, with almost a dozen debuting publicly since the beginning of September. The week of Sept. 15 saw six biotech IPOs alone, which added a combined new market capitalization of over $300 million to the NASDAQ.

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