Nektar Therapeutics today announced the promotion of Lorianne Masuoka, M.D. to Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Masuoka will report directly to Nektar’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Howard W. Robin. “Lorianne’s outstanding leadership and highly effective clinical development strategies have been instrumental in rapidly advancing Nektar’s proprietary clinical pipeline, including the successful partnering of NKTR-118 with AstraZeneca,” Robin said. “She has assembled a world-class Clinical Development team that has demonstrated its ability to efficiently and repeatedly move our high-value proprietary compounds through clinical development.” Dr. Masuoka has over 15 years of experience in clinical research and development in CNS, oncology, metabolic disease and immunology. As Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, she will lead Clinical Development, Regulatory Affairs, Drug Safety, Clinical Pharmacology, Toxicology and Program Management. Dr. Masuoka joined Nektar in August 2008 as Vice President of Clinical Development. Dr. Masuoka received her B.S. and M.D. from the University of California, Davis and completed her fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine. She is board certified in Neurology. Dr. Randall Moreadith, Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer, will be leaving the company for personal reasons. The company wishes to acknowledge his contributions over the past year.