Nkarta (NKTX) Appoints George Vratsanos to its Board

Nkarta, Inc. (Nasdaq: NKTX) today announced that translational immunology expert George Vratsanos, M.D., FACR, is joining its board of directors.

Dr. Vratsanos currently serves as Chief Medical Officer and Head of R&D for Jnana Therapeutics where he oversees the company’s R&D work to treat phenylketonuria and a broad range of immune-mediated diseases.

He previously held R&D leadership roles as Senior Vice President of Translational Science and Medicine, Immunology at Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Executive Global Program Head of the Immunology and Dermatology Franchise at Novartis, as well as a Translational Medicine Leader at Roche and a Group Director at Bristol Meyers Squibb.

“George is an accomplished physician-scientist whose R&D leadership experience spans multiple autoimmune diseases areas and the successful development of approved therapies such as Orencia® and Cosentyx®,” said Paul J. Hastings, President and CEO of Nkarta. “He will be an enormous asset to the Nkarta board and executive team as we execute our bold, strategic path to pioneer safe and accessible cell therapy for people living with lupus and other autoimmune diseases.”

Dr. Vratsanos graduated from New York University (NYU) School of Medicine with honors and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in investigative rheumatology/immunobiology at Yale University. He also earned a master’s degree in clinical investigation from Vanderbilt University, as well as a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Columbia University.

“I’m excited to embrace this new leadership opportunity and support Nkarta’s ground-breaking clinical work to explore natural killer cell therapy for the treatment of lupus and other autoimmune diseases,” Vratsanos said. “Nkarta’s mission is my own. My passion is the translation of innovative immune science into approved therapies that transform patient care. NK cell therapy has breakthrough potential to treat debilitating autoimmune diseases without the safety concerns and logistical challenges of other cell therapies. I look forward to helping Nkarta leverage its strengths as it advances its cell therapy programs.”

Nkarta is working to harness the body's natural killer (NK) cells – the immune system's first responders – to deliver a safe, well tolerated, accessible form of cell therapy to treat autoimmune disease. NKX019, an allogeneic, on-demand cell therapy candidate, is in development to treat lupus nephritis – a severe form of lupus in which the immune system attacks the kidneys and other healthy tissue and organs.

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