aibioNektar Therapeutics regains compliance with Nasdaq minimum bid price rule
Tickers NKTR
Nasdaq told Nektar on June 24, 2025 that it met the minimum bid rule after a $1.00 closing bid held for 10 consecutive business days. The 8-K gives no share price or financial figures, and the company's pipeline is still in mid-stage trials.
Key facts
- Company
- Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR)
- News type
- Listings
- Primary source
- Nektar Therapeutics 8-K (2025-06-27)
Nektar Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NKTR) said in a Form 8-K filed June 27, 2025 that it received a letter on June 24, 2025 from the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Department. The letter said the company has regained compliance with the Minimum Bid Price Rule for continued listing on The Nasdaq Capital Market. Chief Legal Officer and Secretary Mark A. Wilson signed the filing.
The rule and the deadline
The rule is Nasdaq Listing Rule 5550(a)(2). On April 3, 2025, Nektar received a notice from the Staff stating that it was not in compliance because its common stock had not maintained a minimum closing bid price of $1.00 per share for 30 consecutive trading days. Nasdaq gave the company an initial 180 calendar day period, until September 30, 2025, to regain compliance.
To do so, the stock had to hold a closing bid price of $1.00 per share or greater for at least 10 consecutive business days. Nektar said the requirement was met on June 23, 2025, and Nasdaq's letter followed on June 24.
The filing does not give the share price on any of those days, does not say what steps the company took, and does not say whether Nasdaq will watch the stock after the matter is closed. It reports no financial figures, so it does not show how much cash the company has.
What the stock represents
The 10-K filed March 14, 2025 describes the work behind the shares. The first program it covers is rezpegaldesleukin. Nektar says research and development spending on it rose significantly in 2024 because it began two Phase 2b studies. One covers patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis and started in October 2023. The other covers patients with severe-to-very severe alopecia areata and started in March 2024. The expense figures include Nektar's 25% share of costs Eli Lilly incurred on Phase 1b and Phase 2 work before the Lilly collaboration agreement was terminated in 2023. Nektar expected 2025 development costs for the drug to match 2024 while the Phase 2b studies continue, excluding any added work that depends on their results.
For NKTR-255, spending fell in 2024 because development activity was reduced, and Nektar expected it to fall again in 2025 because it had completed its Phase 2 study in patients with large B-cell lymphoma. That study evaluated NKTR-255 after Yescarta or Breyanzi CD19 CAR-T cell therapy. The program's costs also include an investigator-sponsored study at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center after Breyanzi in relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. They include a collaboration with Merck KGaA testing maintenance use with avelumab, a PD-L1 inhibitor, in locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma in the Phase II JAVELIN Bladder Medley study. A further investigator-sponsored study tests NKTR-255 with IMFINZI (durvalumab) in unresectable Stage 3 NSCLC after chemoradiation.
NKTR-0165 is at an earlier point. In December 2023 Nektar exercised an option for an exclusive license to specified agonistic antibodies and other materials developed under a 2021 research collaboration and license option agreement with Biolojic Design, Ltd. Spending on the program increased significantly in 2024 as IND enabling activities began, and Nektar expected a slight increase in 2025.
Costs, restructuring and open risks
Personnel, overhead and other costs fell in 2024 under a 2023 restructuring plan. The plan cut the San Francisco-based workforce by approximately 60%, substantially completed by June 2023, and led Nektar to sublease its remaining office and laboratory space on Mission Bay Blvd. South. The company expected those costs to be consistent in 2025.
Nektar says the timing and amount of future trial expenses will vary significantly with clinical results and with the design, timing and scope of added programs. It names the number of patients required, enrollment speed, trial design demands from health authorities, competition for patients from other drug candidates, and the cost and timing of approvals as factors.