Thursday, July 16, 2015

NantKwest Launches IPO

Culver City-based NantKwest--until recently known as Conkwest--said today that it has launched an IPO effort, offering up 7,000,000 shares of its stock at between $20.00 and $23.00 per share. The company--which is developing immunotherapy products for treating cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory disease--said it has applied to list on the Nasdaq Global Market as NK. The IPO is being underwritten by BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Jefferies LLC and Piper Jaffray & Co. , plus MLV & Co. LLC. NantKwest is related to NantWorks via Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns 62.1 percent of NantKwest, according to NantKwest's S-1 filing. Soon-Shiong took the stake in Conkwest back in December of 2014, investing $50M in a strategic funding in the company.

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