Report: AstraZeneca Might Bid On Juno Therapeutics

Juno Therapeutics Inc JUNO gained about 14 percent on Tuesday after AstraZeneca plc (ADR) AZN reportedly told Bloomberg it would consider buying a company such as Juno.

Separately, Juno agreed Tuesday to pay $21 million in cash and about 439,000 shares to acquire X-Body Inc.

X-Body has nine employees and provides drug-development technology.

Juno, with about 90.4 million shares outstanding and a market cap of about $4.85 billion, traded recently at $60.02, up $7.12 or 13.4 percent.

Juno develops cancer drugs using the human body's immune system and agreed to a development partnership with AstraZeneca in April for a non-Hodgkin lymphoma treatment.

Terms of the collaboration with AstraZeneca weren't disclosed.

AstraZeneca, with a market cap of $84.45 billion, traded recently at $67.13, up $0.09.

AstraZeneca lost its development partner for its brodalumab treatment for certain forms of psoriasis and other inflammatory disease last month when Amgen Inc. AMGN backed out.

Amgen cited a the potential need for restrictive labeling on the product after suicidal thinking and behavior was observed among some patients in a drug trial.

AstraZeneca's Chief Executive Pascal Soriot told Bloomberg on Tuesday that the company is "actively contacting people who can help us think our strategy through, if we can find a way forward or not" for brodalumab.