ImmunityBio Appoints Global Health Leader Dr. Jim Yong Kim as Vice Chairman to Strengthen International Partnerships and Expand Global Healthcare Access
ImmunityBio, Inc., a commercial-stage biotechnology company focused on developing and delivering immunotherapy-based treatments, has announced the appointment of Dr. Jim Yong Kim as Vice Chairman. In his newly created role, Dr. Kim will join the company’s Office of the Executive Chairman and work closely with Executive Chairman and Founder Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong to strengthen ImmunityBio’s international relationships and support the company’s efforts to expand the global reach of its scientific and clinical programs.
The appointment brings an internationally recognized physician, public health leader, academic, and development finance expert into a senior leadership position at ImmunityBio. Dr. Kim has spent decades working at the intersection of medicine, global health, economic development, and international institutions. His experience includes leadership positions at the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, Dartmouth College, Harvard Medical School, and major global health initiatives.
At ImmunityBio, Dr. Kim will focus primarily on building and strengthening relationships with governments, health ministries, multilateral organizations, healthcare systems, and other global health partners. His work is expected to support the company’s efforts to advance its immunotherapy platform and clinical programs internationally, as well as improve access to approved therapies in markets outside the United States where regulatory authorization has been obtained.
New Executive Chairman Office to Support Global Strategy
The creation of the Office of the Executive Chairman represents an additional organizational structure intended to bring together senior leaders who can support Dr. Soon-Shiong on corporate strategy, scientific initiatives, partnerships, and international programs.
ImmunityBio has been working to develop immunotherapy approaches designed to harness the body’s immune system against serious diseases. As the company continues to advance its scientific and clinical pipeline, international partnerships could become increasingly important for conducting clinical research, developing healthcare collaborations, navigating regulatory environments, and improving access to treatments.
Dr. Kim’s new position is expected to complement the company’s scientific and medical capabilities with expertise in global health policy and international development.
Rather than focusing solely on commercial activities, his role will encompass engagement with public-sector institutions and organizations involved in healthcare delivery and global health. These relationships could help create pathways for collaboration across different healthcare systems and regions.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Founder, Executive Chairman, and Global Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of ImmunityBio, emphasized Dr. Kim’s extensive experience in bringing medical care to underserved populations.
He said Dr. Kim’s background across global health, development finance, government relationships, and multilateral organizations will be valuable as ImmunityBio seeks to develop partnerships that can support scientific advancement, clinical development, and broader access to its therapies.
Extensive Global Health Leadership Experience
Dr. Kim brings a long history of involvement in global healthcare and international development to ImmunityBio.
From 2012 to 2019, he served as the 12th president of the World Bank Group. During his tenure, he worked on initiatives focused on reducing extreme poverty and improving economic opportunities for people in developing countries.
The World Bank under his leadership established goals aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030 and improving the economic position of the poorest 40% of populations in developing nations. His tenure also included efforts to strengthen global preparedness for health emergencies.
One of the initiatives launched during his leadership was the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, an instrument designed to provide rapid financial resources during infectious disease outbreaks. The program represented an effort to address one of the major challenges of global public health: the need to mobilize resources quickly before localized outbreaks become larger international emergencies.
Dr. Kim’s experience therefore extends beyond traditional healthcare delivery. His background includes understanding how governments, financial institutions, international organizations, and healthcare providers can work together to address complex health challenges.
Co-Founder of Partners In Health
Before his leadership roles in international institutions, Dr. Kim played a significant role in establishing community-based healthcare programs in some of the world’s most underserved regions.
In 1987, he co-founded Partners In Health alongside Dr. Paul Farmer and other colleagues. The organization developed healthcare and treatment programs for vulnerable populations, including patients affected by drug-resistant tuberculosis, HIV, and AIDS.
These efforts included work in Haiti, Peru, and other areas where healthcare infrastructure and access to medicines were limited.
His experience with Partners In Health helped establish a foundation for his later work in global health. It also provided firsthand exposure to the challenges involved in delivering sophisticated medical treatments in communities with limited resources.
The experience reinforced his focus on making scientific and medical advances accessible to populations that might otherwise be excluded from modern healthcare systems.
Leadership at the World Health Organization
Dr. Kim also held a senior leadership position at the World Health Organization, where he served as director of the organization’s HIV/AIDS department from 2003 to 2005.
During this period, he led the “3 by 5” initiative, an ambitious global effort to expand access to antiretroviral treatment. The initiative established an international target for providing HIV treatment to millions of people in developing countries.
The program was significant because access to HIV medicines had historically been concentrated in higher-income countries, while many patients in developing nations faced substantial barriers to treatment.
Dr. Kim’s involvement in the initiative demonstrated his ability to work across governments, healthcare organizations, international institutions, and pharmaceutical stakeholders to address global treatment gaps.
That experience is particularly relevant to his new role at ImmunityBio, where the company is seeking to establish international partnerships and expand the availability of its immunotherapy technologies and approved therapies.
Academic and Institutional Leadership
In addition to his global health work, Dr. Kim has held prominent academic leadership positions.
He served as president of Dartmouth College and held professorships at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
His academic background combines medicine and anthropology, giving him experience that spans clinical science, population health, social systems, and healthcare delivery.
Dr. Kim has also received significant recognition for his contributions to healthcare and global development. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and has been recognized by TIME magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
He currently serves as Vice Chairman and Senior Advisor at Global Infrastructure Partners, part of BlackRock, where he supports the emerging markets team. He also serves as Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda.
These positions provide additional experience in international investment, emerging markets, education, and healthcare development.
Supporting ImmunityBio’s International Expansion
For ImmunityBio, the appointment comes as the company continues to pursue a strategy centered on immunotherapy and global healthcare impact.
The company’s scientific approach is based on using the immune system to combat serious diseases. Its development activities include clinical research programs intended to evaluate novel immunotherapy approaches, while its commercial-stage status provides an opportunity to expand access to therapies that have received regulatory authorization.
International expansion can present substantial challenges for biotechnology companies. Regulatory requirements differ across countries, healthcare financing systems vary significantly, and access to innovative medicines can depend on government policy, reimbursement structures, clinical infrastructure, and local partnerships.
Dr. Kim’s experience working with governments and international institutions could help ImmunityBio navigate some of these complexities.
His role will also involve building relationships with health ministries and multilateral organizations. Such partnerships can be particularly important in regions where public healthcare systems play a central role in determining how medicines are introduced and delivered.
Focus on Partnerships and Patient Access
Dr. Kim said his career has been focused on ensuring that scientific and medical advances reach the people who need them most. He described ImmunityBio’s mission as an ambitious effort grounded in immunology, innovation, and global impact.
In his new role, he will work with Dr. Soon-Shiong and the ImmunityBio team to establish partnerships across governments, healthcare systems, and international institutions.
The objective will be to accelerate research, broaden access, and help bring potential medical advances to patients around the world.
This focus on partnerships reflects the increasing importance of collaboration in biotechnology. Drug development often requires cooperation among pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic institutions, healthcare providers, regulatory agencies, governments, and patient organizations.
For therapies intended to reach global populations, these relationships can become especially important as companies move from clinical development toward commercialization and broader healthcare adoption.
A Strategic Addition to ImmunityBio Leadership
Dr. Kim’s appointment adds a distinctive combination of medical, scientific, public health, academic, governmental, and financial experience to ImmunityBio’s leadership structure.
His history of working on infectious diseases, global treatment access, healthcare delivery, development finance, and international policy provides a broad perspective that extends beyond conventional pharmaceutical development.
For ImmunityBio, the newly established Office of the Executive Chairman is expected to serve as a platform for developing strategic relationships and supporting initiatives that can advance the company’s global objectives.
As the company continues to develop its immunotherapy programs and seek opportunities to expand access to approved treatments, international collaboration will remain an important component of its strategy.
The appointment of Dr. Kim signals ImmunityBio’s intention to place global partnerships and healthcare access more prominently within its long-term growth plans. With his extensive experience working across governments, international organizations, academic institutions, healthcare systems, and development-focused organizations, Dr. Kim is positioned to contribute to the company’s efforts to translate biomedical innovation into broader global impact.
Ultimately, ImmunityBio expects the combination of its immunotherapy expertise and Dr. Kim’s global health leadership experience to help strengthen the company’s international strategy. The partnership between Dr. Kim and Dr. Soon-Shiong is intended to support the advancement of research, clinical development, strategic collaborations, and access to innovative therapies for patients in the United States and around the world.
About ImmunityBio
ImmunityBio, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on innovating, developing, and commercializing next-generation immunotherapies designed to activate the patient’s immune system and deliver durable protection against cancer and infectious diseases. Our approach harnesses both the adaptive and innate immune systems with the goal of restoring immune function and generating lasting immunological memory in patients.
At the core of our strategy is the Cancer BioShield™ platform, which is designed to stimulate critical lymphocytes, including natural killer (NK) cells, cytotoxic T cells, and memory T cells via our proprietary IL-15 receptor agonist, ANKTIVA® (nogapendekin alfa inbakicept).
Our Cancer BioShield platform is anchored by this antibody-cytokine fusion protein and is complemented by a portfolio that includes adenovirus-vectored vaccines, allogeneic (off-the-shelf) and autologous NK-cell therapies, and additional immunomodulators intended to promote immunogenic cell death and support durable immune responses while potentially reducing reliance on high-dose chemo-radiation therapy. For more information, visit ImmunityBio.com and connect with us on X (Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.