Nektar Therapeutics is an American biopharmaceutical company. The company was founded in 1990 and is based in San Francisco, California.[2] The company develops new drug candidates by applying its proprietary PEGylation and advanced polymer conjugate technologies to modify chemical structure of substances,[3] which improves drug characteristics like retention and solubility.[4] It is a technology supplier to a number of pharmaceutical companies including Affymax, Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and UCB Pharma, etc.[2] The company developed the world's first inhalable non-injectable insulin, Exubera, which was awarded as the bronze award by Wall Street Journal for its technological breakthrough.[5]