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Nkarta Announces Presentation of Preclinical Data on NKX019, Engineered NK Cell Therapy Candidate Targeting CD19, at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nkarta, Inc. (Nasdaq: NKTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing engineered
About this update from Nkarta, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nkarta, Inc. (Nasdaq: NKTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies to treat cancer, today announced a preclinical update on NKX019, its investigational allogeneic cancer immunotherapy that uses donor-derived natural killer (NK) cells engineered with a membrane-bound form of IL15 and a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) targeting the CD19 antigen.\n The data were presented today in a poster at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting entitled “Preclinical evaluation of NKX019, a CD19-targeting CAR NK Cell”. Poster # 127. Highlights of the preclinical findings include: Cryopreserved NKX019 demonstrated potent, targeted anti-tumor activity in vitro and in vivo across different CD19-expressing cancer models for B cell lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Compared to non-engineered NK cell controls, the dosing of NKX019 resulted in increased treatment exposure and superior anti-tumor activity. Compared to T cells transduced to express a CD19 CAR, NKX019 demonstrated several advantages. NKX019 was more potent on a per cell basis than CD19 CAR T cells, with a more rapid onset of activity. Moreover, when exposed to tumor cells side-by-side with CAR19+ T cells, NKX019 produced significantly lower quantities of factors associated with cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a type of adverse event associated with approved CAR T cell therapies. The preclinical data support the potency, safety and tolerability profile of NKX019. In addition to the limited cytokine response of NKX019 in the presence of tumor cells, NKX019 cell killing was highly specific, confined to CD19+ cells when tested in bulk peripheral blood. James Trager, Ph.D., Nkarta’s Chief Scientific Officer, noted, “Unprecedented outcomes have been seen in patients with B cell malignancies who received CD19-directed autologous CAR T cells. Despite the remarkable medical advance of these therapies, a significant need remains for treating these patients, and we’ve designed NKX019 with those needs in mind. The potential potency, safety and scalability of CD19-targeted NK cells create an opportunity to advance a new treatment paradigm. A recent publication by researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center of a cohort of patients t...