Yesterday's CC did not include any news that would put a sense of urgency into anyone considering buying NKTR stock. It is clear that it will take years for NKTR's business plan to play out and if anything, yesterday's CC contained more "push-outs" than "pull-ins". On the other hand, nothing that was said yesterday remotely suggested that the business plan is in jeopardy of failure. We were told that the $125M payment from AZN was in fact made and that this payment would should up on NKTR's P&L over the next 5 quarters. Is a $25M boost to revenue in each of the next 5 Q's a good thing? Yes, I believe it is. While details of the $31M license renewal were not given, the expectation remains that this payment will occur and that NKTR will make an announcement when it does. Will it be good for NKTR to announce this $31M license payment sometime in the next 7 weeks? Yes, I believe it will be received as good news. Finally, while the completions of Phase II testing of NKTR-102 for CRC and breast cancer were pushed out, the explanation that it's hard to get oncologists interested in potentially treating patients with irinotecan as monotherapy seems reasonable. Probably what was more newsworthy was the statement that preliminary results for NKTR-102 in the ovarian cancer study would be released in January, and that if these results were sufficiently compelling, this could form the basis of a partnering deal that could be on a similar scale as the AZN deal for NKTR-118/119. The plan being pursued by NKTR for NKTR-102 makes good sense - pursue a path of quickest approval (which would be for NKTR-102 as a monotherapy), but bring a partner on board with deep enough pockets to finance the extensive testing required to replace irinotecan where it is used as part of a treatment cocktail. The biggest event for NKTR this year was clearly the deal with AZN for 118/119, and the biggest event for next year would be a similarly-sized deal for NKTR-102.

So.... no urgency, but no reason for pessimism either. Good luck to NKTR longs.