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.

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