Overview

Jounce was founded as an Immunotherapy company. What we really target our goals at are to look at first-in-class mechanisms, and that means to look at new therapies into new ways of coaxing the immune system to attack the cancer. We want to bring that right immunotherapy to the right patient population and create kind of the maximum benefit for the patients who will respond to that drug. Immuno oncology has been the paradigm shift for treating cancer. We’re pushing our own immune system to identify these tumors and battle them. Jounce’s approach in terms of actually applying all of the clinical insights to every single stage of the discovery program, really makes it unique from the other companies out there. Every cancer is different; every patient is different. How can we harness the patient’s immune system? And that has to be done on an individual level. Part of having great science and achieving our goal is really to focus on how we can identify each disease in each patient and pair that with the right therapy. We really try to empower the employees here. We want people to step in and take responsibility. We want them to have a voice. This is the first time that was given a project and I’m there from start to end. All of my expectations have been exceeded, in the sense that I’m learning every day and I’ve already learned so much. We also link the culture very closely with the values. Our core values are really central to what we do every day, from working as a team… Truly in drug development and many other types of fields, you can’t do anything alone. There’s tons of collaboration over here. We come from different backgrounds, but we have the same goal in mind. There’s a really nice cross-section there, where everybody is a part of one or more programs. Everyone is welcome in those planning meetings and design meetings, and we’re constantly refining and iterating these things together. I think Jounce does a really good job at not only developing you as a scientist, but also as a colleague. They want you to interact with your colleagues and build those relationships that will help you in the future. Every Thursday we get together to have a happy hour and just talk about what work we’re doing, or other things we’re passionate about. You can expect to have fun, you can expect to do really cutting-edge, great science, and all of this while knowing that you’re really helping a huge community of patients out there. We have one singular goal and focus in mind, and that’s to help cancer patients. We really know that we can’t do this work alone. What we’re trying to do is make sure that all the work that we’re doing at the bench, all the way down the line to the shelf, will be the right medication for the right patient. I love it here.