Things are a little on edge in Seattle’s biotech scene after the Jan. 3 announcement that pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) intends to buy Celgene, the parent company of Juno Therapeutics, in one of the industry’s largest acquisitions ever.
The $74 billion cash-and-stock buyout has the potential to accelerate the development of new treatments in areas such as cancer immunotherapy, Juno’s expertise, but the long-term effect on biotech employment in the Seattle region is less clear.
Juno, which spun out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 2013, employed more than 500 people, about 350 of them in Seattle, when it moved into its custom-built headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood in September 2017. A few months later, in January 2018, Celgene acquired Juno in a $9 billion deal. The New Jersey-based biotech company continues to operate Juno’s Seattle R&D space and its manufacturing facility in nearby Bothell, Wash.
