About this Associate General Counsel role at Nkarta, Inc.
About Us
Nkarta is a publicly traded (Nasdaq symbol NKTX), clinical-stage biotechnology company headquartered in South San Francisco, focused on advancing the development of allogeneic, off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cell therapies to treat autoimmune disease.
Founded in 2015, Nkarta is on a mission to harness the body’s natural killer cells – the immune system’s first responders – to deliver a safe, accessible form of cell therapy to treat B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases. Our vision is to make cell therapy more broadly available to patients by pioneering allogeneic NK cells that can be dosed in outpatient, community health settings.
Nkarta’s engineering process enhances the natural ability of NK cells to fight disease by identifying and eliminating unhealthy cells, including malfunctioning B cells at the root of many autoimmune conditions. Our lead NK cell therapy candidate, NKX019, uses NK cells collected from healthy donors rather than burdening the patient with a blood collection. Using donor-derived cells allows us to develop CAR NK cells off the shelf and on demand.
Nkarta is a people-driven company looking for passionate, collaborative, determined team members galvanized by a paradigm-shifting opportunity to change the cell therapy landscape.
Overview
Reporting to the VP, General Counsel and Special Operations, the Associate General Counsel will serve as a hands-on, business-minded attorney supporting Nkarta’s commercial, compliance, promotional review, employment, and corporate needs. This role will help lead the company’s legal function and will partner closely with leaders across the company.
Beyond day-to-day legal support, the Associate General Counsel will help Nkarta meet its obligations as a public company, from SEC reporting and Board and committee support to compliance more broadly. We’re looking for someone who thrives on speed and agility, understands the risk landscape of a biotech company, and gives clear, practical advice the business can act on in a fast-paced, clinical-stage environment.
Responsibilities
Commercial and Contracting
- Oversee the contracts function and serve as the escalation point for the contracts team on non-standard terms, negotiation positions, and risk allocation to ensure consistency across agreements.
- Advise on complex and high-value agreements, including license, collaboration, and strategic vendor agreements.
Compliance and Promotional Review
- Maintain and update corporate policies, deliver compliance training, and support compliance programs, including conflict of interest, HCP engagement, and data privacy.
- Review promotional, scientific, and corporate communications, including press releases, investor and conference presentations, website, social media, and disease awareness materials, for compliance with FDA, SEC, and other applicable requirements.
- Advise on pre-approval communications and help prepare the company for future product launch and commercialization.
Legal Operations
- Manage outside counsel relationships, engagements, and budgets, and coordinate intellectual property matters with outside counsel, including patent, trademark, and brand protection.
- Support litigation, disputes, and regulatory or governmental inquiries as needed.
- Help build scalable legal processes and tools, including supporting the rollout of the company’s AI-enabled contract lifecycle management platform.
Employment
- Advise on employment matters, including employment agreements, equity awards, severance, workplace policies, investigations, and HR compliance.
- Manage the company’s immigration program in partnership with outside immigration counsel.
Corporate, Securities and Governance
- Support preparation of SEC filings, including Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K, the proxy statement, and Section 16 filings.
- Support Board and committee meetings, including materials, minutes, resolutions, and the annual stockholder meeting.
- Support capital markets, financing, and strategic transactions, including due diligence and transaction documents.
Role Specific Competencies
- Sound, risk-calibrated judgment that enables the business.
- Ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and meet tight deadlines with strong attention to detail.
- Comfortable with ambiguity in a lean, evolving organization.
- Strong communicator, able to present effectively to senior leadership, the Board, and outside counsel.
- Collaborative, low-ego team player who builds trust across functions.
- Comfortable adopting technology and AI tools to work efficiently and scale the legal function.
Qualifications
- Active state bar membership in good standing (California preferred) and eligibility to practice as in-house counsel in California.
- Minimum 7 years of legal experience, ideally at a public biotech or life sciences company.
- Strong transactional experience negotiating complex commercial agreements, ideally in a life sciences setting.
- Working knowledge of SEC reporting, corporate governance, and public company compliance.
- Employment law experience preferred.
- Experience with FDA advertising and promotion review and trademark and brand matters preferred.
- Experience managing outside counsel and supervising or mentoring others.
- Prefer candidate that is located in the Greater San Francisco area and able to work a hybrid schedule in the South San Francisco office.
- Embodies the Nkarta culture of empowerment, diversity, and inclusion.
Education
- J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school.
Working at Nkarta
There are several factors taken into consideration in determining base salary, including but not limited to: job-related qualifications, skills, education and experience, as well as the value of other elements of an employee’s total compensation package. Nkarta also offers an annual discretionary bonus, equity grant(s), medical, dental, vision and life insurance coverage, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans. Other benefits include 401K plan, flexible spending account, ESPP, employee assistance program, paid vacation, holiday and personal days, paid parental, pregnancy, and bereavement leave.
The 100+ team members describe working at Nkarta through some of the following comments. While getting better work-life balance and improving communications between groups in an early stage start up environment are two areas on which we are working, here are real, anonymous comments about or regarding why people think Nkarta is a great place to work.
- “People are always open to ideas.”
- “Exceptionally talented, committed, *kind* & supportive team.”
- “The CEO is transparent and honest with expectations for the whole company. There is genuine care amongst the leadership team for their peers and employees. I believe this is unique.”
- “Not to sound corny, but the emphasis on people as a valuable resource is something I recognize doesn't often exist elsewhere, and it's here in ample supply, which is great.”
- “It's the first place that I've worked where the executive team truly values the employees. It's a pretty amazing thing not to hear that employees can be replaced with someone new. Institutional knowledge is understood.”
- “We have a very diverse team with executives that are friendly and accessible.”
- “Smart and dedicated colleagues. Mission to make a difference in patients’ lives. Empower us with tools needed to succeed. Open and transparent culture. Transparent leadership.”
To learn more about our work at Nkarta and the career opportunities that will drive us forward to serve patients, please visit the company’s website at https://www.nkartatx.com.
