Once one of the hottest brands in biotech, Patrick Soon-Sh­iong’s next-gen can­cer brain­child Nan­tK­west has tak­en its lumps in re­cent years with lit­tle to show from its nat­ur­al killer cell plat­form. Now, with his cell ther­a­py play Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio mov­ing much faster in the clin­ic, Soon-Sh­iong will merge the two com­pa­nies to­geth­er to stream­line their mar­ket as­pi­ra­tions.

Nan­tK­west will re­verse merge with Soon-Sh­iong’s Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio in a stock-for-stock trans­ac­tion to bring 11 late-stage nat­ur­al killer and cell ther­a­py can­di­dates for on­col­o­gy and in­fec­tious dis­eases un­der a sin­gle roof, the com­pa­nies said Mon­day.

Rich Ad­cock

Soon-Sh­iong, a bil­lion­aire sur­geon and a big-tick­et name in bio­phar­ma, will stay on as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man while Rich Ad­cock, Nan­tK­west’s reign­ing CEO, will side­step in­to the same role at the new firm. The merg­er is set to close in the first half of 2021 with Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio in­vestors tak­ing the li­on’s share of the new com­pa­ny at a ful­ly di­lut­ed 78%.

Soon-Sh­iong stepped down from the CEO role in Oc­to­ber in fa­vor of Ad­cock five years in­to Nan­tK­west’s whirl­wind pub­lic of­fer­ing. The off-the-shelf nat­ur­al killer play, which Soon-Sh­iong de­scribed as his “can­cer moon shot,” was once the most valu­able IPO in biotech be­fore see­ing its share prices plum­met with lit­tle clin­i­cal da­ta to hold up and a very pub­lic re­con­sid­er­a­tion of the com­pa­ny’s hype.

For­tunes changed in ear­ly 2020 af­ter Soon-Sh­iong tout­ed ear­ly re­sults show­ing one pan­cre­at­ic can­cer pa­tient with a com­plete re­sponse, putting wind in the flag­ging com­pa­ny’s sales. On Fri­day, Nan­tK­west $NK shares closed trad­ing at $10.26.

So with lit­tle still to show for his ef­forts, Soon-Sh­iong will guide a new firm with a more di­ver­si­fied pipeline and a lit­tle bit more to show on the clin­i­cal side. Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing news of the merg­er Mon­day, Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio, a biotech tar­get­ing the in­nate and adap­tive im­mune sys­tem, trum­pet­ed re­sults from a Phase II/III tri­al show­ing its IL-15″su­per­ag­o­nist” Ank­ti­va (N-803) post­ed a 72% com­plete re­sponse rate in BCG un­re­spon­sive non-mus­cle in­va­sive blad­der can­cer af­ter 12 months of treat­ment.

That can­di­date comes from Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio’s im­munother­a­py fu­sion pro­tein, im­munomod­u­la­tor, and ade­n­ovirus plat­forms, which the biotech is al­so uti­liz­ing to chase a Covid-19 vac­cine. That can­di­date is an­gling for a Phase I hu­man study af­ter com­plete­ly clear­ing tri­al pri­mates’ air­ways in a U.S. gov­ern­ment-spon­sored tri­al, the com­pa­ny re­cent­ly said.

“What dis­tin­guish­es the merged en­ti­ty is the late stage im­munother­a­py prod­uct pipeline that is de­signed to elim­i­nate the need for high-dose chemother­a­py, im­prove the out­comes of cur­rent CAR T cell ther­a­pies, and ex­tend be­yond check­point in­hibitors,” Soon-Sh­iong said in a re­lease. “With 13 clin­i­cal tri­als across mul­ti­ple tu­mor types at Phase I to III and with the com­bined tal­ent in re­search, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing, the merged en­ti­ty is poised to be a leader in the im­munother­a­py space.”

In all, the new­co will have 13 as­sets in clin­i­cal tri­als, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, with IP run­ning out to 2035. The com­pa­ny will go on­line with a com­bined 200,000 square feet of man­u­fac­tur­ing and clin­i­cal space as it takes mul­ti­ple runs at the mar­ket.

The biotech industry has faced repeated calls to diversify its workforce — and in the last year, those calls got a lot louder. Though women account for just under half of all biotech employees around the world, they occupy very few places in C-suites, and even fewer make it to the helm.

Some companies are listening, according to a recent BIO survey which showed that this year’s companies were 2.5 times more likely to have a diversity and inclusion program compared to last year’s sample. But we still have a long way to go. Women represent just 31% of biotech executives, BIO reported. And those numbers are even more stark for women of color.

In the insular world of biotech, a spectacular failure can sometimes stay on any executive’s record for a long time. But for David Meek, the man at the helm of FerGene’s recent implosion, two questionable exits made way for what could be an excellent rebound.

Meek, most recently FerGene’s CEO and a past head at Ipsen, has become CEO at Mirati Therapeutics, taking the reins from founding CEO Charles Baum, who will step over into the role of president and head of R&D, according to a release.