In Juno patient deaths, echoes seen of earlier failed company
By Sharon Begley,
STAT
| 07. 08. 2016
Two top executives and dozens of other employees of Juno Therapeutics, the company that on Thursday was forced to halt a clinical trial after three leukemia patients died, are alumni of another biotech company that declared bankruptcy two years ago after disappointing sales of its one product.
And the roots of both Seattle companies’ troubles appear similar to some close observers: a failure to adequately heed the scientific challenges of bringing complicated cancer immunotherapies to market.
“There are echoes here of [the previous company,] Dendreon,” said a health care industry analyst who declined to be named because of concerns it would hurt client relationships. “Both companies were willing to move ahead with something when they had only a superficial, almost cartoonish, understanding of how [the experimental therapy] works at the cellular level. And now three people are dead. … It’s beyond tragic.”
Continue reading on STAT
Image via Pexels
Related Articles
By Nicholas Wade, The New York Times | 04.30.2026
“J. Craig Venter” via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 2.5
J. Craig Venter, a scientist and entrepreneur who raced to decode the human genome, died on Wednesday in San Diego. He was 79.
His death was announced by...
By Susan Dominus, The New York Times Magazine | 04.27.2026
Why are babies born young? The most natural phenomenon on earth is actually hard to explain — at least on a cellular level. Consider this problem: The components of conception are old. When a woman gets pregnant, she has...
By Jonathan Basile, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 04.29.2026
WILLIAM BATESON, a foundational figure in the science of genetics at the turn of the last century, once recounted the response of a Scottish soldier to one of his public lectures: “Sir, what ye’re telling us is nothing but Scientific...
By Dr. Coco Newton, Progress Educational Trust | 03.30.2026
Have you ever wondered what it means to have dozens of half-siblings across the world – or to never know where half of your genetic identity comes from? A recent episode of Zembla explores the human consequences of the global...
