Nkarta to build new cell therapy manufacturing center

Nkarta, Inc., a biopharma company that develops engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies to treat cancer, has signed a lease agreement for an 88,000 square-foot San Francisco facility to support research and development and future commercial manufacturing of Nkarta’s cell therapy pipeline.

The new facility, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2023, will also serve as the company’s headquarters with office space and research facilities. The manufacturing center will be designed to complement Nkarta’s technology platform and optimize the production of its NK cell therapy investigational products. Nkarta plans to produce materials for potential clinical trials and commercial launch at the new center.

“Our goal is to ensure that cost-effective, commercial-scale production of cell therapies can be made available widely and rapidly to the cancer patients who need them, and we expect this new facility will enable us to do just that,” says Paul J. Hastings, Nkarta’s president and CEO. “As we advance our clinical programs and enhance our proprietary platform with exciting new capabilities like CRISPR Cas9 genome engineering, we believe our expanded footprint will drive continued operational excellence and accelerate the development of transformative NK cell therapies for a broad range of cancers.”

Earlier this year, Nkarta also completed the construction and qualification of a 2,700 square-foot current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) facility at is main location in South San Francisco.