Nek­tar, stung by new in­vestor law­suit over IL-2 drug, se­cures $150M for Keytru­da com­bo piv­otal tri­al

Nek­tar Ther­a­peu­tics’ IL-2 drug hasn’t al­ways lived up to ex­pec­ta­tions in the four and a half years since it scored a promi­nent al­ly in Bris­tol My­ers Squibb — a pact that even­tu­al­ly bal­looned to $3.6 bil­lion.

The ear­ly da­ta snap­shots for a com­bo of be­m­pe­galdesleukin, or NK­TR-214, with Op­di­vo, in par­tic­u­lar, rat­tled in­vestors, and the biotech’s ex­pla­na­tion, pin­ning the blame on man­u­fac­tur­ing, did lit­tle to sal­vage their stock price. In fact, just yes­ter­day, two share­hold­ers sued the board of di­rec­tors for hyp­ing tri­al re­sults and then sell­ing $171 mil­lion worth of stock at an in­flat­ed price.

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