April 9, 2015
By Krystle Vermes, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Juno Therapeutics agreed to a lease on April 6 that granted the biotech company more than 80,000 square feet in a to-be-constructed building in Seattle, Wash. The facility, located at 400 Dexter Avenue North, will have office and laboratory spaces. Juno currently has more than 20 job openings in the Seattle area listed on its website.
At the moment, the company is operating its headquarters at the Seattle BioMed Building. Juno’s lease in the upcoming Alexandria Real Estate lab and office building is slated for seven years. It has the option to expand in the 288,000 square-foot building during this time.
The base rent for the facility will be $48 per square foot ($3.8 million) and increase 2.5 percent each year.
Juno originally announced that it would be looking into a new headquarters in the Seattle area back in March. Since 2014, the biotech company has expanded from 10 employees to 123 employees.
Seeking a Way to Satisfy Investors
Juno announced its fourth quarter and 2014 financial results on March 18, exhibiting a year-end cash position of $474 million. However, the company also noted that it would be increasing its 2015 cash burn guidance of $125 million to $150 million, which displeased investors and analysts alike.
Shares of the company were down following the announcement. However, Juno specified at the time that it had the financial strength to support clinical trials for multiple product candidates, which could eventually contribute to its bottom line.
“Our financial guidance for 2015 provides evidence of our commitment to patients and to investors to deliver on our business strategy, to spend prudently, and to invest in the innovation and development of therapies that re-engage the immune system to fight cancer,” said Steven Harr, chief financial officer of Juno.
Hans Bishop, Juno’s chief executive officer, also noted that the company will have 10 product candidates entering clinical development over the next 12 months. Bishop credited its successful rounds of private financing and Juno’s IPO for the opportunities to continue with its research.
Some of the promising products in the pipeline include Juno’s JCAR015, JCAR017 and JCAR014. The drugs in the biotech company’s pipeline are designed to treat a wide range of cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
BioSpace Temperature Poll
After last week’s news that Gilead had issued a health advisory to doctors, concern is growing after nine patients taking Harvoni or Sovaldi along with another drug, amiodarone, were treated for abnormally slow heartbeats. One of the patients died of cardiac arrest. Three of the nine patients required a pacemaker. That has BioSpace asking, what next?
