NantKwest Continues the Strengthening of Its Leadership Team and Appoints a Seasoned Bioprocessing Manufacturing Executive
October 06 2015 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Stephen Farrand, Ph.D., former Merck
executive appointed Senior Vice President Global
Manufacturing
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
Stephen Farrand, Ph. D., as senior vice president of global
manufacturing.
“Dr. Farrand is an experienced executive, with an impressive
track record of achievement in chemistry, manufacturing and control
(CMC) development,” said Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., chairman and
chief executive officer of NantKwest. “He brings expertise in all
aspects of biologics development and manufacturing, as well as a
full understanding of cGMP compliance requirements and the
regulatory environment. With our recent acquisition of two
production sites in Southern California, including a 45,000 square
foot facility in Torrey Pines, Dr. Farrand fills a key function as
we expand in-house production capacity for our aNK, haNK and taNK
products.”
Prior to joining NantKwest, Dr. Farrand was vice president
bioprocess development for Merck Research Laboratories, where his
leadership was instrumental to the successful development and
commercialization of Merck’s PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor,
Keytruda. Previously, he held a number of positions of increasing
responsibility with Schering Plough, most recently as vice
president global biologics & sterile product development.
Before that, Dr. Farrand served in senior level development &
manufacturing positions with Delta Biotechnology, Sigma Chemical
and G. D. Searle. Dr. Farrand has a PhD in Microbial
Physiology from the University of Leicester, UK, and a BSc in
Microbiology from the University of Bath, UK.
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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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151006005733/en/
NantKwestJen Hodson, 562-397-3639jhodson@nantworks.com
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