In Juno patient deaths, echoes seen of earlier failed company

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.”

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