NantKwest Names Sonja Nelson Chief Financial Officer
June 19 2018 - 5:00AM
Business Wire
NantKwest, Inc. (Nasdaq: NK) today announced the elevation of
Sonja Nelson, chief accounting officer for the company, to the role
of Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
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Sonja Nelson new CFO at NanKwest (Photo:
Business Wire)
Nelson, who first joined NantKwest in 2015, as the top financial
officer at NantKwest, 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. Nelson succeeds Rich Tajak, who had served
as the company’s CFO since January 2016.
“Sonja brings a bright mind and a fresh perspective to this post
with NantKwest,” said Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Chairman and CEO of
NantKwest. “I’m excited to have her elevated to this leadership
role and look forward to working closely with her.”
Prior to joining NantKwest in 2015, Mrs. Nelson served as
Vice President & Corporate Controller at AltheaDx, Inc. from
2014 and as Senior Director & Controller at Cadence
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (former NASDAQ: CADX) from 2012
to 2014.
Mrs. Nelson also served as Director, General Accounting at
Cricket Communications, Inc. (former NASDAQ: LEAP), a $3
billion wireless services provider, between 2008 and 2012. She
started her career at KPMG and holds a bachelor’s degree in
accounting and taxation from the University of Applied Sciences in
Pforzheim, Germany. She is also a Certified Public Accountant.
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. For more information please
visit http://www.nantkwest.com and follow Dr. Soon-Shiong on
Twitter@DrPatSoonShiong
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180619005495/en/
NantKwest, Inc.Jen Hodson, 562-397-3639jhodson@nantworks.comorCJ
Jackson, 310-486-8908CJ@nantworks.com
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