Description of Business

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

Organization Consolidation And Presentation Of Financial Statements [Abstract]

1.	Description of Business

Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. (“Atara”, “we”, “our” or “the Company”) was incorporated in August 2012 in Delaware. Atara is a cell therapy company developing novel treatments for patients with cancer and multiple sclerosis (“MS”). The Company’s off-the-shelf, or allogeneic, T-cells are engineered from donors with healthy immune function and allow for rapid delivery from inventory to patients without a requirement for pretreatment. Atara’s T-cell immunotherapies are designed to precisely recognize and eliminate cancerous or diseased cells without affecting normal, healthy cells.

We licensed rights to T-cell product candidates from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (“MSK”) in June 2015 and to know-how and technology from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute (“QIMR Berghofer”) in October 2015 and September 2016. See Note 6 for further information.

In 2017, we received net proceeds of $19.2 million from the aggregate sale of 1,349,865 shares of our common stock through our ATM facility with Cowen (see Note 8). Further, in January 2018, we completed an underwritten public offering of 7,675,072 shares of common stock at an offering price of $18.25 per share and received net proceeds of $131.4 million (see Note 10).