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news.Nektar Therapeutics says it is undertaking new organizational and spending reduction initiatives to accelerate the development of PEGylated and pulmonary technology-based therapeutics.
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The company announced that Dr Hoyoung Huh has been promoted to COO and head of the PEGylation business unit. Recently, Nevan Elam was promoted to serve as the head of the company’s pulmonary business unit. In addition, Michael Simms has been promoted to senior vice president of operations, replacing Truc Le, who is leaving the company. Management also announced that CFO Louis Drapeau is retiring and will leave the company in the coming months.
In order to ensure financial stability, Nektar has reduced its ongoing annual spending by approximately $65 million. This amount is comprised of reductions of $21 million from general and administrative costs, $23 million from non-cost-of-goods operations, $16 million from R&D, and $5 million from capital spending. The company anticipates that approximately $27 million of this annual spending reduction will be realized in 2007.
In regard to its proprietary pipeline, the company plans to complete a phase IIb clinical trial of NKTR-061 (inhaled amikacin) to treat hospital-acquired gram-negative pneumonia by year-end. Additionally, the company plans to initiate phase II clinical trials by the end of the year in its two leading PEGylated small molecule programs, NKTR-102 (PEGylated-irinotecan) for solid tumors and NKTR-118 (PEGylated-naloxol) for opioid-induced constipation.