On May 18, 2020, NantKwest announced it had received authorization from the FDA for an Investigational New Drug application to treat patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by COVID-19 with BM-Allo.MSC, an allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) product derived from human bone marrow.

NantKwest has entered into an agreement with the National Marrow Donor Program (Be the Match) to provide donor material and has developed automated proprietary methods to expand and generate multiple dose forms utilizing a modular, closed system (GMP-in-a-box) from NantKwest affiliate ImmunityBio, Inc., to expand BM-Allo.MSCs, enabling the scalable manufacture and immediate distribution of cryopreserved BM-Allo.MSC product.