A new biotech company with formidable founders and funding has joined a lawsuit that accuses the University of Pennsylvania of misappropriating key technology behind its breakthrough therapy for leukemia.

The company, Juno Therapeutics Inc., was launched early last month by three major cancer institutes - including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center - with a massive $120 million investment from leading venture capital firms.

Juno's debut ups the ante in the high-stakes race to commercialize novel therapies that use the patient's immune "T cells" to fight cancer. While the approach is still highly experimental - it has worked primarily against certain blood malignancies - results of early clinical testing at Penn and other leading centers have electrified researchers, the biopharma industry, and patients.

Indeed, Penn entered a much-publicized partnership with the global pharmaceutical giant Novartis in 2012, based on results from just the first three leukemia patients.

Penn's T-cell therapy and its development deal are at the heart of the lawsuit that Juno Therapeutics has joined.

Juno, based in Seattle, is a partnership of Sloan-Kettering, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children's Research Institute. Last month, Juno signed a licensing agreement to commercialize T-cell technology patented by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, according to legal papers.

The technology involves a "chimeric antigen receptor," or CAR - a synthetic genetic structure that programs the patient's T cells to target and attack cancer.

St. Jude is suing Penn, accusing the university of breaching an agreement to share St. Jude's CAR and infringing on St. Jude's patent.

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Biotech firm joins suit against Penn's cancer therapy