Nkarta (NASDQ:NKTX) announced the clearance of an investigational new drug clearance (IND) application for its investigator-sponsored trial (IST) evaluating NKX019 in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), alongside the initial enrollment for its Ntrust-2 trial.
NKX019 is an allogeneic, CD-19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK-cell therapy. Ntrust-2 is a multi-center clinical trial to evaluate NKX019 in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc, scleroderma), idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM, myositis) and ANCA-associated vasculitis (AVV). The IST will be led by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Kansas Medical Center.
“The expansion to these four autoimmune indications, in addition to continued execution across our existing clinical trials for lupus nephritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, speaks to the promise of our investigational NK cell therapy, NKX019, to provide a safe and accessible treatment option for people living with autoimmune disease,” said Paul J. Hastings, CEO of Nkarta.