Cancer BioShield Platform Comes to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East
May 27, 2025 • 11:36 am CDT
ImmunityBio, Inc (IBRX), today announced the signing of a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA), King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre (KFSHRC), and King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC).
As of May 27, 2025, this multi-party collaboration will introduce the FDA-approved Cancer BioShield platform to Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East, marking a new era of immune-restorative therapies for cancer patients.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Founder, Executive Chairman, and Global Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of ImmunityBio, stated in a press release, “We are honored to work with KAIMRC, KFSHRC, and MISA to bring this transformative technology to the region."
"The BioShield platform changes the way we think about treating cancer, not by destroying the immune system but by restoring and activating it."
"The root cause of early mortality is the collapse of the immune system—lymphopenia is the disease, and cancer is a symptom."
"Together, by considering this a paradigm change, we can build a regional center of excellence for next-generation immunotherapies in which we activate the body’s natural defenses.”
The BioShield platform, powered by Anktiva (nogapendekin alfa inbakicept)—the world’s first FDA-approved IL-15 superagonist to stimulate the proliferation of NK and T cells (lymphocytes)—represents a paradigm shift in cancer care.
Unlike conventional treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation, which kill and suppress natural killer immune cells, thereby paradoxically catalyzing further spread, BioShield protects and activates the immune system’s natural killer cells and T cells to restore immune function and prolong life.
For the first time in medicine, physicians can address the long-overlooked impact of lymphopenia (loss of NK and T cells), induced by current standards of care of chemotherapy, radiation, or by the cancer itself.
The BioShield is the first therapy in history to specifically address the protection and restoration of lymphocytes, represented by NK, CD8, and CD4 T cells—the most important cells in the body needed to fight cancer and infection.
Treating lymphopenia is an answer to premature death from life-threatening diseases such as cancer and sepsis, and, potentially, to aging and longevity in health.
As of May 2025, Anktiva plus BCG Vaccine is available at various clinical sites in the U.S.
**Mentioning dollar amounts for revenue or any royalty amounts involved would’ve helped the sp of IBRX (which did nada yesterday and has gotten way too comfortable doing nada). US technology going overseas and it will be a foreign country approving Bioshield first for Lymphophenia. When the Saudi Food and Drug Authority does issue that approval for their citizens and the Middle East, it will make the FDA look like the idiots that they are considering the FDA has had the Lymphophenia data for some time.