Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Forward-Looking Statements

This report includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (Securities Act), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act). All statements other than statements of historical fact are “forward-looking statements” for purposes of this quarterly report on Form 10-Q, including any projections of market size, earnings, revenue, milestone payments, royalties, sales or other financial items, any statements of the plans and objectives of management for future operations (including, but not limited to, preclinical development, clinical trials and manufacturing), any statements related to our financial condition and future working capital needs, any statements regarding potential future financing alternatives, any statements concerning proposed drug candidates, any statements regarding the timing for the start or end of clinical trials or submission of regulatory approval filings, any statements regarding future economic conditions or performance, any statements regarding the initiation, formation, or success of our collaboration arrangements, timing of commercial launches and product sales levels by our collaboration partners and future payments that may come due to us under these arrangements, any statements regarding our plans and objectives to initiate or continue clinical trials, any statements related to potential, anticipated, or ongoing litigation, any statements concerning estimates and predictions of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on our business and clinical trials and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as “may,” “will,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “potential” or “continue,” or the negative thereof or other comparable terminology. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, such expectations or any of the forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect and actual results could differ materially from those projected or assumed in the forward-looking statements. Our future financial condition and results of operations, as well as any forward-looking statements, are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the risk factors set forth in Part II, Item 1A “Risk Factors” below and for the reasons described elsewhere in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q. All forward-looking statements and reasons why results may differ included in this report are made as of the date hereof and we do not intend to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law or applicable regulations. Except where the context otherwise requires, in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q, the terms “Company,” “Nektar,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Nektar Therapeutics, a Delaware corporation, and, where appropriate, its subsidiaries.

Trademarks

Note 1 — Organization and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies

We are a research-based biopharmaceutical company headquartered in San Francisco, California and incorporated in Delaware. We are developing a pipeline of drug candidates that utilizeleverage our proprietary and proven advanced polymer conjugate technology platforms, which are designed to enable the development of new molecular entities that target known mechanisms of action. Our research and development pipeline of new investigational drugs includes investigational treatmentspotential therapies for canceroncology, immunology and autoimmune disease.virology.

Our consolidated financial statementsCondensed Consolidated Financial Statements include the financial position, results of operations and cash flows of our wholly-owned subsidiaries: Inheris Biopharma, Inc. (Inheris), Nektar Therapeutics (India) Private Limited (Nektar India), Nektar Therapeutics UK Limited, and Nektar Therapeutics UK Limited.NL B.V. We have eliminated all intercompany accounts and transactions in consolidation.

The preparation of consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of revenue and expenses during the reporting period. Accounting estimates and assumptions are inherently uncertain.

We operate in 1 business segment which focuses on applying our technology platform to develop novel drug candidates. Our business offerings have similar economics and other characteristics, including the nature of products and manufacturing processes, types of customers, distribution methods and regulatory environment. We are comprehensively managed as 1 business segment by our Chief Executive Officer.

Our customers are primarily pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are located in the U.S. and Europe and with whom we have multi-year arrangements. Our accounts receivable balance contains billed and unbilled trade receivables from product sales, milestones (to the extent that they have been achieved and are due from the counterparty), and other contingent payments, and royalties, as well as reimbursable costs from collaborative research and development agreements. As of March 31, 2020,2021, our accounts receivable includes $10.9 million under customer contracts from our collaboration partners and $31.2$26.2 million for unbilled net expense reimbursements from our collaboration partner Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS). and $2.9 million under customer contracts from our collaboration partners. As of December 31, 2019,2020, our accounts receivable included $12.8 million from customer contracts and $24.0$38.7 million for unbilled net expense reimbursements from BMS.BMS and $0.2 million from customer contracts. We generally do not require collateral from our customers. We perform a regular review of our customers’ credit risk and payment histories, including payments made after period end. Historically, we have not experienced credit losses from our accounts receivable.receivable and recorded no bad debt expense for the three months ended March 31, 2021 and 2020. We have not0t recorded a reserve for credit losses at March 31, 20202021 or December 31, 2019.2020.

We enter into collaboration arrangements with pharmaceutical and biotechnology collaboration partners, under which we may grant licenses to our collaboration partners to further develop and commercialize one of our proprietary drug candidates, either alone or in combination with the collaboration partners’ compounds, or grant licenses to partners to use our technology to research and develop their own proprietary drug candidates. We may also perform research, development, manufacturing and supply activities under our collaboration agreements. Consideration under these contracts may include an upfront payment,

For elements of those arrangements that we determine should be accounted for under ASC 606, we assess which activities in our collaboration agreements are performance obligations that should be accounted for separately and determine the transaction price of the arrangement, which includes the assessment of the probability of achievement of future milestones and other potential consideration. For arrangements that include multiple performance obligations, such as granting a license or performing contract research and development activities or participation on joint steering or other committees, we allocate upfront and milestone payments under a relative standalone selling price method. Accordingly, we develop assumptions that require judgment to determine the standalone selling price for each performance obligation identified in the contract. These key assumptions may include revenue forecasts, clinical development timelines and costs, discount rates and probabilities of clinical and regulatory success.

Product sales are primarily derived from manufacturing and supply agreements with our customers. We have assessed our current manufacturing and supply arrangements and have generally determined that they provide the customer an option to purchase our proprietary PEGylation materials. Accordingly, we treat each purchase order as a discrete exercise of the customer’s option (i.e. a separate contract) rather than as a component of the overall arrangement. The pricing for the manufacturing and supply is generally at a fixed price and may be subject to annual producer price index (PPI) adjustments. We invoice and recognize product sales when title and risk of loss pass to the customer, which generally occurs upon shipment. Customer payments are generally due 30 days from receipt of invoice. We test our products for adherence to technical specifications before shipment; accordingly, we have not experienced any significant returns from our customers.

Research and development costs are expensed as incurred and include salaries, benefits and other operating costs such as outside services, supplies and allocated overhead costs. We perform research and development for our proprietary drug candidates and technology development and for certain third parties under collaboration agreements. For our proprietary drug candidates and our internal technology development programs, we invest our own funds without reimbursement from a third party. Where we perform research and development activities under a joint development collaboration, such as our collaboration with BMS, we record the cost reimbursement from our partner as a reduction to research and development expense when reimbursement amounts are due to us under the agreement.

We record an accrued expense for the estimated costs of our clinical trial activities performed by third parties. The financial terms of these agreements are subject to negotiation, vary from contract to contract and may result in uneven payment flows to our vendors. Payments under the contracts depend on factors such as the achievement of certain events, successful enrollment of patients, and completion of certain clinical trial activities. We generally accrue costs associated with the start-up and reporting phases of the clinical trials ratably over the estimated duration of the start-up and reporting phases. We generally accrue costs associated with the treatment phase of clinical trials based on the estimated activities performed by our third parties. We may also accrue expenses based on the total estimated cost of the treatment phase on a per patient basis and expense the per patient cost ratably over the estimated patient treatment period based on patient enrollment in the trials. In specific circumstances, such as for certain time-based costs, we recognize clinical trial expenses using a methodology that we consider to be more reflective of the timing of costs incurred.

We record an accrued expense for the estimated costs of our contract manufacturing activities performed by third parties. The financial terms of these agreements are subject to negotiation, vary from contract to contract and may result in uneven payment flows to our vendors. Payments under the contracts include upfront payments and milestone payments, which depend on factors such as the achievement of the completion of certain stages of the manufacturing process. For purposes of recognizing expense, we assess whether we consider the production process is sufficiently defined such that the resulting product can be considered the delivery of a good, as evidenced by predictive or contractually required yields in the production process or payment terms based on the actual yield, or the delivery of a service, where processes and yields are developing and less certain. If we consider the process to be the delivery of a good, we recognize expense when the drug product is delivered, or we otherwise bear risk of loss. If we consider the process to be the delivery of a service, we recognize expense based on our best estimates of the contract manufacturer’s progress towards completion of the stages in the contracts. We recognize and amortize upfront payments and accrue liabilities based on the specific terms of each arrangement. Certain arrangements may provide upfront payments for certain stages of the arrangement and milestone payments for the completion of certain stages, and, accordingly, we

We capitalize advance payments for goods or services that will be used or rendered for future research and development activities and recognize expense as the related goods are delivered or services performed. We base our estimates on the best information available at the time. However, additional information may become available to us in the future which may allow us to make a more accurate estimate in future periods. In this event, we may be required to record adjustments to research and development expenses in future periods when the actual level of activity becomes more certain. We generally consider such

increases or decreases in cost as changes in estimates and reflect them in research and development expenses in the period identified.

On January 14, 2020, the joint FDA Anesthetic Drug Products Advisory Committee and Drug Safety and Risk Management Committee did not recommend approval of our NDA for NKTR-181. As a result, we withdrew our NDA and decided to make no further investments in this program. On February 26, 2020, the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors approved management’s plan for the wind-down of Inheris and the NKTR-181 program.

For the three months ended March 31, 20202021 and 2019,2020, our income tax expense primarily results from taxable income in our Nektar India subsidiary. We have fully reserved our U.S. federal deferred tax assets generated from our net operating losses, as we believe it is not more likely than not that the benefit will be realized.

We currently have an effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (the 2021 Shelf Registration Statement) on file with the Securities and Economic Security Act

Note 2 — Cash and Investments in Marketable Securities

Cash and investments in marketable securities, including cash equivalents, are as follows (in thousands):

Note 4 — Co-Development Agreement with SFJ Pharmaceuticals and Development Derivative Liability

Note 5 — Liability Related to Sale of Future Royalties

The    In addition, the 2012 and 2020 Purchase and Sale Agreement grantsAgreements grant RPI and HCR, respectively, the right to receive certain reports and other information relating to the Royalty Entitlement2012 and contains2020 Transaction Royalties, respectively, and contain other representations and warranties, covenants and indemnification obligations that are customary for a transactiontransactions of this nature. To our knowledge, we are currently in compliance with these provisions of the 2012 and 2020 Purchase and Sale Agreement;Agreements; however, if we were to breach our obligations, we could be required to pay damages to RPI and HCR, respectively, that are not limited to the purchase priceprices we received in the sale transaction.transactions. However, the time limitation we have to indemnify RPI with respect to any breach of these intellectual property-based representations and warranties has passed.

Note 56 — Commitments and Contingencies

From time to time, we are involved in lawsuits, arbitrations, claims, investigations and proceedings, consisting of intellectual property, commercial, employment and other matters, which arise in the ordinary course of business. We make provisions for liabilities when it is both probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of the loss can be reasonably estimated. Such provisions are reviewed at least quarterly and adjusted to reflect the impact of settlement negotiations, judicial and administrative rulings, advice of legal counsel, and other information and events pertaining to a particular case. Litigation is inherently unpredictable. If any unfavorable ruling were to occur in any specific period, there exists the possibility of a material adverse impact on the results of our operations of that period and on our cash flows and liquidity.

As part of our collaboration agreements with our partners related to the license, development, manufacture and supply of drugs and PEGylation materials based on our proprietary technologies and drug candidates, we generally agree to defend,

Note 67 — Fair Value Measurement

Note 8 — License and Collaboration Agreements

We have entered into various collaboration agreements including license agreements and collaborative research, development and commercialization agreements with various pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Under these collaboration arrangements, we are entitled to receive license fees, upfront payments, milestone and other contingent payments, royalties, sales milestone payments, and payments for the manufacture and supply of our proprietary PEGylation materials and/or reimbursement for research and development activities. We generally include our costs of performing these services in research and development expense, except for costs for product sales to our collaboration partners which we include in cost of goods sold.

In accordance with our collaboration agreements, we recognized license, collaboration and other revenue as follows (in thousands):

On July 23, 2017, we entered into a worldwide license agreement with Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly), which became effective on August 23, 2017, to co-develop NKTR-358, a novel immunological drug candidate that we invented. Under the terms of the agreement, we (i) received an initial payment of $150.0 million in September 2017 and are eligible for up to $250.0 million in additional development milestones, (ii) will co-develop NKTR-358 with Lilly, for which we were responsible for completing Phase 1 clinical development and are responsible for certain drug product development and supply activities, (iii) will share with Lilly Phase 1B and 2 development costs with 75% of those costs borne by Lilly and 25% of the costs borne by us, (iv) will have the option to contribute funding to Phase 3 development on an indication-by-indication basis ranging from 0 to 25% of development costs, and (v) will have the opportunity to receive a royalty rate up to double-digit sales royalty rates that escalatethe low twenties based upon our Phase 3 development cost contribution and the level of annual global product sales. Lilly will be responsible for all costs of global commercialization, and we will have an option to co-promote in the U.S. under certain conditions. A portion of the development milestones may be reduced by 50% under certain conditions, related to the final formulation of the approved product and the timing of prior approval (if any) of competitive products with a similar mechanism of action, which could reduce these milestone payments by 75% if both conditions occur.

We determined that our obligation to manufacture and supply our PEGylation materials and to maintain the dedicated manufacturing suite solely for the production of such materials for Amgen represented an obligation to stand ready to manufacture such materials. We concluded that we should recognize revenue based on the passage of time as this method depicts the satisfaction of Amgen’s right to require production of PEGylation materials at any time. As of March 31, 2020,Additionally, we have deferred revenue of approximately $2.9 million related to this agreement, which we expect to recognize through October 2020, the estimated end of our obligationscollaborations agreements for products under this agreement.

Note 79 — Stock-Based Compensation

We recognized total stock-based compensation expense in our Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations as follows (in thousands):

Note 810 — Net Loss Per Share

We calculate basic net loss per share based on the weighted-average number of common shares outstanding during the periods presented and calculate diluted net loss per share based on the weighted-average number of shares of common stock

For the three months ended March 31, 20202021 and 2019,2020, basic and diluted net loss per share are the same due to our net losses and the requirement to exclude potentially dilutive securities which would have an antidilutive effect on net loss per share. During the three months ended March 31, 20202021 and March 31, 2019,2020, potentially dilutive securities consisted of the weighted-average common shares underlying outstanding stock options and RSUs, which totaled 18.8 million and 18.9 million shares, respectively.RSUs.

Overview

Nektar Therapeutics is a research-based biopharmaceutical company that discovers and develops innovative new medicines in areas of high unmet medical need. Our research and development pipeline of new investigational drugs includes treatmentspotential therapies for canceroncology, immunology and autoimmune disease.virology. We leverage our proprietary and proven chemistry platform to discover and design new drug candidates. These drug candidates utilize our advanced polymer conjugate technology platforms, which are designed to enable the development of new molecular entities that target known mechanisms of action. We continue to make significant investments in building and advancing our pipeline of proprietary drug candidates as we believe that this is the best strategy to build long-term stockholder value.