William Blair analyst Andy Hsieh is an "aggressive" buyer of Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) on today's selloff. The stock is down after management disclosed that the scope of collaboration with partner Bristol-Myers (BMY) is now narrowed to roughly five or six registrational trials from the planned 18 first announced in January of this year, and that there were some issues pertaining to the manufacturing of bempegaldesleukin that potentially led to the drastic difference in response rate between the November 2017 and June 2018 data announcement of the Phase II PIVOT-02 results, Hsieh tells investors in a research note. While acknowledging that the development is "directionally negative," the analyst believes the magnitude of the Nektar selloff overshoots the potential impact. In addition, Nektar is working with the FDA and partner Bristol-Myers to resolve the manufacturing issue by establishing new quality control initiatives, Hsieh points out. He believes empegaldesleukin "remains differentiated" and he keeps an Outperform rating on Nektar Therapeutics. The stock in premarket trading is down 37%, or $10.92, to $18.65.

Notable companies reporting before tomorrow's open, with earnings consensus, include Merck (MRK), consensus $1.87... Caterpillar (CAT), consensus $5.14... Comcast (CMSCA), consensus 99c... Honeywell (HON), consensus $2.17... Bristol-Myers (BMY), consensus ($4.44)... Altria (MO), consensus $1.15... Keurig Dr. Pepper (KDP), consensus 35c... GE Vernova (GEV), consensus (37c)... Royal Caribbean (RCL), consensus $1.33... Tractor Supply (TSCO), consensus $1.72... Mobileye (MBLY), consensus (6c)... Textron (TXT), consensus $1.23... LabCorp (LH), consensus $3.48... Southwest Airlines (LUV), consensus (34c)... American Airlines (AAL), consensus (29c)... Harley-Davidson (HOG), consensus $1.51.

Biolojic Design announced that Nektar exercised its license option to develop a program resulting from the companies' research collaboration initiated in 2021. The research collaboration was established to design and test agonistic antibodies targeting tumor necrosis factor receptor type II, a novel, biologically-validated disease target implicated in a wide range of autoimmune diseases that has been difficult to drug with conventional medicines. The antibody program selected for development is designed to modulate the TNFR2 pathway in order to agonize - or activate - T regulatory cells and other anti-inflammatory cell populations, making this a promising approach to stimulating the immune system in ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, vitiligo, and other autoimmune disease states. Under the 2021 research agreement, Nektar has tested antibodies computationally designed by Biolojic Design to precisely agonize the TNFR2 receptor. Following successful preclinical in vitro and in vivo studies, Nektar decided to exercise the license option and has been advancing the program through IND enabling studies since late December, 2023. If the NKTR-0165 candidate proceeds through clinical development, Biolojic Design is entitled to development milestones and sales royalties.