SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nektar
Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NKTR) announced today several promotions on
its executive leadership team:
- Stephen Doberstein, Ph.D., has
been promoted to Senior Vice President, Research & Development
and Chief Research & Development Officer;
- Mary Tagliaferri, M.D., has been
promoted to Senior Vice President, Clinical Development and Chief
Medical Officer;
- Jonathan Zalevsky, Ph.D., has
been promoted to Senior Vice President, Research and Chief
Scientific Officer.
"I am exceptionally pleased to announce today's promotions which
highlight the talent, skill set and extensive achievements of our
executive team," said Howard W.
Robin, President and CEO of Nektar Therapeutics. "With the
growth in the development of Nektar's unique and wholly-owned
immuno-oncology portfolio and our submission of an NDA filing for
NKTR-181, it is critical that we have the right leadership in place
to drive the continued success of our pipeline and the
company."
Dr. Doberstein has over 25 years of experience in biotechnology
research and development. Since joining Nektar in January 2010, he has spearheaded the discovery
team at Nektar, which led to the identification and growth of the
company's proprietary pipeline of drug candidates. This included
development of NKTR-181 (a first-in-class opioid analgesic with
strategic brain entry kinetics) and NKTR-214 (a CD122-biased
agonist that is currently in multiple clinical studies across a
wide range of tumor types). Dr. Doberstein also serves as a
representative of Nektar for the National Institute of Health (NIH)
Public/Private Initiative to Address the Opioid Crisis. Prior
to joining Nektar, Dr. Doberstein was Vice President of Research at
XOMA where he was responsible for directing discovery and
development of multiple drug candidates, including antibody
discovery and support of clinical development through non-clinical
safety, translational medicine and
pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics. Previously, Dr. Doberstein
served as Vice President, Research at Five Prime Therapeutics, a
protein and antibody discovery and development company where he
built and led the discovery research and process development group.
While at Five Prime, he created several successful drug candidate
programs that resulted in multiple strategic alliances with
pharmaceutical partners, and moved a number of product candidates
from concept to clinical stage in diabetes, oncology, rheumatoid
arthritis and osteoarthritis. Prior to that, Dr. Doberstein was the
Vice President of Research at Xencor, and also held senior
leadership positions at Exelixis.
Dr. Tagliaferri has 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical
drug development in oncology and women's health as well as
extensive regulatory expertise. Dr. Tagliaferri joined Nektar in
January 2015 as Vice President,
Clinical Development. During her tenure at Nektar, she has provided
strategic development leadership for the company's immuno-oncology
portfolio, including NKTR-214, a CD122 biased agonist, which is in
multiple clinical studies across a wide range of tumor types. She
serves as strategic development leader for the clinical
collaboration between Nektar and
Bristol-Myers Squibb. Prior to joining Nektar, she was
a clinical and regulatory consultant to InterMune before its
acquisition by Roche. She also served as Chief Medical
Officer at KangLaiTe USA, a
privately-held biotechnology company which develops oncology drug
candidates in multiple solid tumor settings. Dr. Tagliaferri was
also co-founder and President and Chief Medical Officer of BioNovo
where she led the company's clinical drug development strategy and
global regulatory affairs, led data management and biostatistics,
and oversaw clinical operations and compliance. Dr. Tagliaferri
received the 2012 State of California Woman of the Year award for
her advancements of clinical research in women's health and her
mentorship of women in the biotechnology field.
Dr. Zalevsky joined Nektar in July
2015 as Vice President of Biology and Preclinical
Development to lead biological and translational research and guide
strategy for the Nektar discovery portfolio. During his tenure at
the company, Dr. Zalevsky's expertise in immunology, as well as his
experience across biological modalities and therapeutic areas, have
helped fuel the growth of the company's immuno-oncology and
immunology pipeline. Dr. Zalevsky led the discovery and preclinical
development for NKTR-358 (a T regulatory cell stimulatory agent
being developed for auto-immune diseases with partner Eli Lilly
& Co.) and NKTR-262 (a small molecule TLR agonist being
developed in combination with NKTR-214). Prior to joining Nektar,
Dr. Zalevsky had over 15 years of experience within both large
pharmaceutical and small biotechnology companies. Previously, Dr.
Zalevsky was Global Vice President and Head of the Inflammation
Drug Discovery Unit at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. As the leading
immunologist for Takeda, he was responsible for an immunology
pipeline that spanned from early target discovery to late-stage
development and launched products. Prior to working at
Takeda, Dr. Zalevsky held a number of research and development
positions at Xencor, where he was responsible for the discovery and
development of Xencor's first four clinical-stage assets.
About Nektar
Nektar Therapeutics is a research-based biopharmaceutical
company whose mission is to discover and develop innovative
medicines to address the unmet medical needs of patients. Our
R&D pipeline of new investigational medicines includes
treatments for cancer, auto-immune disease and chronic pain. We
leverage Nektar's proprietary and proven chemistry platform in the
discovery and design of our new therapeutic candidates. Nektar is
headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional operations
in Huntsville, Alabama and Hyderabad, India. Further information about the company
and its drug development programs and capabilities may be found
online at http://www.nektar.com.
Contact:
For Investors:
Jennifer Ruddock of Nektar Therapeutics
415-482-5585
Jodi Sievers of Nektar Therapeutics
415-482-5593
For Media:
Jennifer Paganelli
347-658-8290
jpaganelli@purecommunications.com
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SOURCE Nektar Therapeutics