NantKwest to Present Data at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology

Oral Presentation to Highlight Preclinical Data on a Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) Engineered Natural Killer Cell Therapy (CD19.taNK) in CD Resistant B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

NantKwest Inc. (Nasdaq:NK), 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, today announced an oral presentations will be given at the upcoming 59th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, December 9, 2017.

Presentation Title

CD19-Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) Engineered Natural Killer (NK) Cell Therapy: Novel “Off the Shelf” Immunotherapy in CD20 Resistant B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) Cell Lines, Primary NHL Cells, and a Human Lymphoma Xenograft Model Target Activated Natural Killer (CD19.taNK) Cellular Therapy: A Novel Immunotherapeutic Approach to the Treatment of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL)

Abstract #110: https://ash.confex.com/ash/2017/webprogram/Paper107066.html

Presenter: Sneha Purvey, MD, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA

Date: Saturday, December 9, 2017, 9:45AM, Building C, Level 1, C101 Auditorium (Georgia World Congress Center)

Presentation Summary

This oral presentation will present preclinical data on the company’s CD19.taNK program. CD19.taNK cell therapy is based on the use of engineered NK cells expressing a human anti-CD19 CAR that target CD19 expressing cells. The study was designed to more deeply understand the mechanism of action associated with NK-based therapy in B cell NHL and determine the potential for CD19.taNK cells as an “off the shelf” therapy.

The study author’s identified high levels of NK activating ligands indicative of a conserved mechanistic response to CD19-CAR NK cell therapy. In addition, the authors determined that CD19.taNK cell therapy induced significant single-agent cytolytic activity against a wide range NHL cells, including primary DLBCL cells, and cells resistant to standard anti-CD20 antibody.

“CD20 targeted antibody therapy represent one of the most effective and widely used therapeutic interventions in blood cancers. However, resistance is common, occurring in a large percentage of patients,” said Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, Chairman and CEO of NantKwest. “For next generation therapies, such as our CD19.taNK cell therapy, circumventing resistance requires both a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of resistance and the mechanisms of action. We believe these study results provide encouraging data elucidating the significant, single-agent cytolytic activity of CD19.taNK cell therapy and takes us one step closer in our focus to transition this novel NK cell therapy to clinical cancer care.”

About NantKwest

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 www.nantkwest.com.

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NantKwest Inc.Jen Hodson, [e-mail]