Piper Jaffray analyst Tyler Van Buren believes next Wednesday's ASCO abstract for Nektar's Phase I/II Pivot study of NKTR-214 in combination with nivolumab will be one of the most highly anticipated abstracts of the conference. The analyst notes, however, that the abstract will be from a February data cut while the oral presentation in early June will be from a data cut later this month. As such, the oral presentation will contain "significantly more mature data and should ultimately be relied on to make conclusions about the anti-tumor activity," Van Buren tells investors in a research note. He believes the oral presentation will be positive and keeps an Overweight rating on Nektar Therapeutics with a $125 price target following the company's Q1 results.

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.