| Nektar Therapeutics | |
| Former Name: | Inhale Therapeutic Systems, Inc. |
| Type: | Public |
| Industry: | Biopharmaceuticals |
| Revenue: | (2018)[1] |
| Num Employees: | 718 |
| Num Employees Year: | 2020 |
Nektar Therapeutics is an American biopharmaceutical company. The company was founded in 1990 and is based in San Francisco, California.[2] The company develops new drug candidates by applying its proprietary PEGylation and advanced polymer conjugate technologies to modify chemical structure of substances.[3] It is a technology supplier to a number of pharmaceutical companies including Affymax, Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and UCB Pharma, etc.[2] The company developed the world's first inhalable non-injectable insulin, Exubera, which was awarded as the bronze award by Wall Street Journal for its technological breakthrough.[4]
The company is engaged in developing a proprietary pipeline of drug candidates for several therapeutic areas including oncology, pain, anti-infectives, anti-viral and immunology.[2] The company's research and development involve in small molecule and biologic drug candidates. Its drug candidate base consists of naloxegol (Movantik), a Phase III oral opioid antagonist, etirinotecan pegol, a topoisomerase inhibitor under Phase III clinical study as of 2012, NKTR 061, NKTR-181, NKTR-214, etc.[5]
In 2013, the company was assigned a patent which was developed by the company and other four co-inventors.[6] The products of the company is served as a supplement to improve the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, half-life, bioavailability and other areas of drugs for the patients worldwide.[7] As of March 2014, the company had a market capitalization of $1.7 billion with an enterprise value of $1.67 billion.[1] As of July 15, 2019, the company had a market cap of $5.88 Billion.
Etirinotecan pegol was in the phase III BEACON trial as well as in the I-SPY2 adaptive clinical trial for breast cancer in 2016.[8] The European Medicines Agency refused a marketing authorisation in 2017.[9]
Bempegaldesleukin (NKTR-214) is a CD122-biased immune-stimulatory cytokine,[10] Phase I results were announced in November 2016.[11] It is now in a phase 2 trial in combination with nivolumab for various advanced cancers.[12]