Juno Therapeutics to take on the University of Pennsylvania in legal showdown over next-generation cancer therapy.
Juno Therapeutics, an oncology startup founded last month with $120m venture backing, is starting 2014 with a legal battle against the University of Pennsylvania over the rights to next generation cancer therapies.
The dispute is over chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) which, as reported last month, are capable of reprogramming T-Cells, one of the body’s natural defence mechanisms, to identify and target cancer cells.
The opening round came when St Jude Children’s Research Centre – one of the three founding institutions of Juno alongside Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre – claimed that Pennsylvania professor Carl June trespassed on CAR intellectual property belonging to St Jude. Pennsylvania responded by saying St Jude was interfering with its contract rights from a $20m deal with biotech giant Novartis signed in 2012.
Juno has since taken over from St Jude in leading the charge in the ownership battle after a federal judge granted the firm permission to “control, pursue, and defend” the case. The two parties will meet on 28 January to attempt settling the case without a trial.
CARs represent a cancer therapy with high potential for both successful treatments and profitability. In a recent clinical study conducted by Novartis, 19 if 22 patients with terminal acute lymphoblastic leukaemia experienced complete remissions after being treated. Pennsylvania’s CAR was also the first to report a breakthrough when it completely removed a 64-year old man’ terminal leukaemia. The patient still remains cancer free today.
The dispute has not prevented further collaboration between Pennsylvania and Sloan-Kettering, however. Both institutions are still planning to go ahead with a clinical study of the two CARs to identify which has the superior version.
