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 is uniquely positioned to implement precision cancer medicine, with the potential to change the current paradigm of cancer care. Natural Killer cells are ancient cells in the human body designed to recognize and detect cells under stress or infected. Our “off-the-shelf” activated Natural Killer (NK) platform have the capacity to destroy cancer and virally infected cells from the body. The safety of our NK cells as well as their activity against a broad range of cancers have been tested in multiple phase 1 clinical trials in the United States, Canada and Europe. In addition to our NK cells capability to be administered in the outpatient setting as an “off-the-shelf” living drug, it serves as a universal cell-based therapy without need for individualized patient matching. Moreover, our NK cell based platform has been bioengineered to incorporate chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) and antibody receptors to further optimize targeting and potency in the therapeutic disease.
Our targeted therapeutic areas include: (1) cancer, focusing on bulky hematological cancers and solid tumors as well as cancer stem cells, (2) infectious diseases, including viral, fungal and bacterial infections, and (3) inflammatory diseases, ranging from rare inherited diseases to more prevalent autoimmune disorders.