Adaptive Biotechnologies Banks $94 Million, Buys Bay Area's Sequenta, Inc.
Summary
January 8, 2015By Mark Terry , BioSpace.com Breaking News StaffSeattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation announced yesterday that it will acquire South San Francisco-based Sequenta in a cash-and-stock deal. Although specific details are not yet available,raised $94 million in private equity cash to support the acquisition.The combined companies will have a value of $500 million.shareholders will acquire a minority equity share in the combined company.“Our mission is to change the course of medicine through sequencing a patient’s adaptive immune system,” saidchief executivein a statement. “Over the past few months it has become increasingly clear that joining forces withwill accelerate our ability to make the promise of more immunosequencing a reality for physicians and patients. By combining our resources, we can increase the number of clinical trials we are able to run to validate clinical applications of immunosequencing, and explore new and innovative research and development initiatives that neither of us would have been able to do.”utilizes a patent-pending technology that utilizes high-throughput gene sequencing with computer infrastructure that allows scientists to minutely analyze T-cell receptors (TCR). You could ask, ‘What is the state of your immune system?’”’s list of customers has included Bristol-Myers Squibb AstraZeneca , and Juno Therapeutics focused more on diagnostic applications, rather than research clients.started in September 2008 as an incubator project atand drew in $40 million from investors, including Celgene and others.Both companies are private, so specific financial details are not disclosed.’s co-founders,and, will be joining the merged companies in executive roles and report to’s“What we’re doing is very innovative, and [the deal] is a recognition that immune sequencing is incredibly important, and will be incredibly important, for lots of indications,” saidchairmanin a statement.