Nkarta Therapeutics Named as a “Fierce 15” Biotechnology Company of 2019


SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 23, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nkarta Therapeutics, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company developing engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies to fight cancer, today announced that FierceBiotech has named it as a “Fierce 15” biotechnology company, identifying it as one of the most promising private biotechnology companies in the industry. To select its winners, FierceBiotech evaluated hundreds of private companies on factors such as the strength of each company’s technology, partnerships, venture backers and competitive market position.

“We are honored to be selected from hundreds of candidates as a Fierce 15 company, reflecting the incredible opportunity of our NK technology platform to generate potentially transformative cell therapies for patients with cancer,” said Paul Hastings, president and chief executive officer of Nkarta. “By harnessing the power of Natural Killer cells through our proprietary expansion and engineering technologies, we seek to maximize and intensify the cancer-killing capabilities of the innate immune system with allogeneic, off-the-shelf therapies. We believe this could be a remarkable advance for patients with a variety of blood cancers and solid tumors.”

“This year has seen unrivalled scientific talent in the early-stage life sciences world and it has been a pleasure to for us at FierceBiotech to speak to all 15 winners and hear their passion, progress and panache,” said Ben Adams, Senior Editor of FierceBiotech. “Each company brought something different, exciting and potentially life-changing for myriad patients around the world across a host of diseases and disorders, using cutting-edge science, top-notch teams and a drive to genuinely make the world a better place, despite the risks and challenges that, as ever in biotech, lay ahead.”

About FierceBiotech
FierceBiotech is the biotech industry's daily monitor, an email newsletter and web resource providing the latest biotech news, articles, and resources related to clinical trials, drug discovery, FDA approval, FDA regulation, patent news, pharma news, biotech company news and more. More than 150,000 top biotech professionals rely on FierceBiotech for an insider briefing on the day's top stories. Signup is free at www.fiercebiotech.com/signup.

About Nkarta
Nkarta Therapeutics was founded on the proprietary, robust and well characterized Natural Killer (NK) cell expansion technology pioneered by Dr. Dario Campana. The company is focused on leveraging the natural potent power of NK cells to identify and kill abnormal cells and recruit adaptive immune effectors to generate responses that are specific and durable. Nkarta is combining its NK expansion platform technology with proprietary cell engineering technologies to generate an abundant supply of NK cells, engineer enhanced NK cell recognition of tumor targets, and improve persistence for sustained activity in the body for the treatment of cancer. Nkarta’s goal is to develop off-the-shelf NK cell therapy product candidates to improve outcomes for patients. Founded in 2015, the company’s investors include Amgen Ventures, Deerfield Management, LSP, Logos Capital, NEA, Novo Holdings A/S, RA Capital Management, Samsara BioCapital and SR One. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.nkartatx.com.

Contacts:

Sylvia Wheeler
swheeler@wheelhouselsa.com

Alex Santos 
asantos@wheelhouselsa.com