Waiting to inhale

For years, it was unclear to the outside world how Nektar Therapeutics would layer on the relatively low royalties it had to be getting from licensing its drug delivery technologies to create a substantial, profitable company. Now that NKTR has begun building a pipeline for its own account and anticipating a much bigger cut of sales from the newly approved Exubera inhaled insulin, the road to riches is becoming clearer.

NKTR started life in 1990 as pulmonary drug delivery specialist Inhale Therapeutic Systems. During those early years, the company tried to live on drug delivery licenses, which typically have royalty rates in the low single-digit range for pegylated products. ...