Nkarta Therapeutics Appoints Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – September 9, 2019 – Nkarta Therapeutics, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company developing engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies to fight cancer, today announced the appointment of Lisa Arjes as vice president of regulatory affairs and clinical quality. Ms. Arjes joins Nkarta with 25 years of experience in engineering, quality, project management, drug supply and regulatory affairs in the biopharmaceutical industry.
“As we advance our novel NK cell therapies toward the clinic, we are pleased to have Lisa leading our regulatory affairs and quality efforts, which are growing and expanding in the organization,” said Paul Hastings, president and chief executive officer, Nkarta Therapeutics. “With Lisa’s guidance, we are planning several Investigational New Drug (IND) Applications within the next twelve months. These include two for NKX101 that will allow dose finding Phase 1 clinical trials in hematological malignancies as well as solid tumors, and an IND for our CAR19-NK program to enable us to begin clinical trials in B-cell malignancies. We believe our innovative and differentiated approach to cell therapy, using natural killer cells, will potentially offer patients a more potent, better tolerated cell therapy option.”
Lisa Arjes joins Nkarta from Revolution Medicines where she was responsible for building the company’s regulatory and quality assurance departments. Prior to Revolution Medicines, Lisa was director of regulatory affairs at Medivation, Inc. (acquired by Pfizer) where she developed and implemented global regulatory strategies for oncology programs in all phases of development. She also held positions as associate regulatory program director and manager of clinical supply chain at Genentech, Inc. She holds a Master of Science degree in regulatory affairs and quality assurance from Temple University, a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Iowa State University, and a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from the University of Iowa.
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.
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