NantKwest Names Fatih M. Uckun, M.D., Vice President of Research and Clinical Development
14 3월 2016 - 9:00PM
Business Wire
NantKwest, Inc. (Nasdaq: NK), a clinical-stage immunotherapy
company focused on harnessing the power of the innate immune system
by using natural killer cells to treat cancer, infectious diseases
and inflammatory diseases, today announced the appointment of Fatih
M. Uckun, M.D., as vice president of research and clinical
development. Dr. Uckun will be responsible for spearheading the
company’s overall scientific development strategy, including
management of the pipeline and clinical development programs.
“Fatih Uckun brings extensive expertise in personalized
medicine, oncology and all stages of clinical development,” said
Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., chairman and chief executive officer of
NantKwest. “He has deep experience in cancer research, with 20
years in developmental therapeutics and biopharmaceuticals. In
addition, Fatih is a prolific biotechnology innovator, inventor of
more than 80 patents and author or co-author of 500 peer-reviewed
journal articles. We welcome Fatih and look forward to his
contributions.”
Prior to joining NantKwest, Dr. Uckun served as president of
Ares Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology start-up company. From 2009
to 2015, he was a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California
and head of Translational Research in Leukemia and Lymphoma of the
Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases, where he directed
a multi-disciplinary National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded
nanomedicine research program. From 2012-2015, Dr. Uckun served as
chair of the Biotargeting Working Group at the NCI Alliance for
Nanotechnology in Cancer. Earlier, he was chief scientific officer
of Jupiter Research Institute and, before that, held senior-level
scientific and research positions at Parker Hughes Institute and
its cancer center, Paradigm Pharmaceuticals, and the Centralized
Immunotoxin Resource Laboratory of the Children’s Cancer Group. He
held several professorships and directorships in the Departments of
Therapeutic Radiology-Radiation Oncology, Pharmacology, Pediatrics
and Biotherapy Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Uckun was the first Holder of the Endowed Hughes Chair in
Biotherapy, an elected member of the American Society of Clinical
Investigation (ASCI), an honor society for physician-scientists,
and a former recipient of a Stohlman Memorial Scholar Award of the
Leukemia Society of America. He was recognized by the Leukemia
Society of America for his pioneering R&D and clinical research
in development of personalized medicines against CD19+ acute
lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer,
and Radiation Research Society for his pioneering research on
development of effective strategies to overcome radiation
resistance in cancer. Dr. Uckun is regarded for his discovery
research on human B-cell development and NIAID-funded research
efforts to design protein therapeutics against HIV and other
viruses. He served as a principal investigator of a DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency)/US Department of Defense
research project aimed at developing a broadly applicable virus
neutralizer as a countermeasure against biological weapons. He has
received numerous research grant awards from the NCI and served as
a peer reviewer on several NIH study sections and special emphasis
panels. He served as editor-in-chief of the medical journal
Leukemia and Lymphoma and continues to serve on the editorial
boards of several medical journals, including the translational
research journal EBioMedicine. Dr. Uckun earned his doctor of
medicine (M.D.) degree from the University of Heidelberg,
Germany.
About NantKwest Inc.
NantKwest (Nasdaq:NK) is a pioneering, next generation,
clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on harnessing the
unique power of our immune system using natural killer (NK) cells
to treat cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases. NK
cells are the body’s first line of defense due to the innate
ability of NK cells to rapidly identify and destroy cells under
stress, such as cancer or virally-infected cells.
NantKwest’s unique NK cell-based platform, with the capacity to
grow active killer cells as a biological cancer therapy, has been
designed to induce cell death against cancer or infected cells by
three different modes of action: (1) Direct killing using activated
NK cells (aNK) that release toxic granules directly into the cell
through cell to cell contact, (2) Antibody-mediated killing using
haNKs, which are NK cells engineered to incorporate a high affinity
receptor that binds to an administered antibody, enhancing the
cancer cell killing effect of that antibody, and (3) Targeted
activated killing using taNKs, which are NK cells engineered to
incorporate chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to target
tumor-specific antigens found on the surface of cancer cells.
Our aNK, haNK and taNK platform addresses certain limitations of
T cell therapies including the reduction of risk of serious
"cytokine storms" reported after T cell therapy. As an
“off-the-shelf” therapy, NantKwest's NK cells do not rely on a
patient’s own often compromised immune system. In Phase 1 clinical
trials in patients with late stage cancer, NantKwest's NK cells
have been successfully administered as an outpatient infusion
therapy without any reported severe side effects, even at doses of
10 billion cells.
By leveraging an integrated and extensive
genomics and transcriptomics discovery and development engine,
together with a pipeline of multiple, clinical-stage,
immuno-oncology programs that include a Phase 2 trial for a rare
form of melanoma and the planned initiation of a clinical trial of
NK cells targeted to breast cancer, we believe NantKwest is
uniquely positioned to be the premier immunotherapy company and
transform medicine by delivering living drugs in a bag and bringing
novel NK cell-based therapies to routine clinical care.
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NantKwestJen Hodson562-397-3639jhodson@nantworks.com
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