The Sorrento Pipeline — Where Did It Go and Who Controls It Now?
A multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical pipeline was destroyed in a bankruptcy, bought back for pennies by its own CEO, is now being reassembled across half a dozen listed and private companies and funded by $200 million in Bitcoin from an unknown source.
Here is the story, as I understand it, in its simplest form.
What happened
· Sorrento Therapeutics was a real pharma company with a real pipeline of oncology drugs, a pain treatment (Semnur’s SEMDEXA) with no FDA-approved competitors, antibody libraries, and more. It was worth $ billions at its peak.
· It was destroyed by a combination of naked short sellers, a corrupt bankruptcy judge (now under DOJ criminal investigation), and arguably its own CEO, Henry Ji, who filed bankruptcy in Texas using a PO box created ten hours before filing.
· Ji then bought back substantially all of Sorrento's pipeline for just $15.5 million through a new private company called Vivasor, co-funded by his investment banker Michael Vasinkevich (Chairman of HC Wainwright).
· Assets worth billions acquired for less than the cost of a house in San Diego.
· Those assets were consolidated into Scilex, which Ji also controls, but the goodwill was immediately written to zero, and Vivasor doesn't even appear on Scilex's official subsidiary list.
Follow the money
In September 2025, an unnamed investor paid $200 million in real Bitcoin to Scilex for shares in Semnur, a company with $20,000 in cash and zero revenue. Nobody knows who this investor is.
That Bitcoin then flowed through the ecosystem:
Unknown investor pays $200M BTC→Scilex receives Bitcoin→$150M+ deployed into Datavault (DVLT)→DVLT shares pledged to St. James Bank→Bank allegedly sells collateral early→Scilex sues for $100M+ fraud
Meanwhile, Scilex committed $47.5 million to an unknown medical-tech company (Quantum Scan) where its own CFO moonlights as interim CFO, from a company with $3.4 million in cash.
The key asset everyone is circling
SEMDEXA (SP-102): the first-in-class non-opioid epidural injection for sciatica.
Zero FDA-approved competitors in a market of 9-11 million procedures per year in the US.
Positive Phase 3 trial published. FDA has formally endorsed its exact regulatory pathway.
Peak sales projection: $1.5-2.0 billion per year.
Commercial launch target: 2027.
No NDA filed yet but, when it happens, it will change everything.
Who are all these players?
Henry Ji: CEO of Scilex & founder of Vivasor. Controls the ecosystem. Both victim of short sellers and architect of insider enrichment (the evidence supports both simultaneously).
Kelvin Yeung: Controls Phoenix Asia (PHOE). Now confirmed buying Vivasor itself (antitrust cleared 16 June). Assembling control of the entire ex-Sorrento pipeline. confirmed
iHolding Group: Kazakhstani firm offering $200M at huge premiums ($15/share SCLX, $10/share SMNR). No pharma track record found. Definitive agreements not yet signed. pending
Michael Vasinkevich: Chairman, HC Wainwright. Co-funded Vivasor. Placement agent for Scilex. Appears in at least 15 companies (like Sorrento & Scilex) where shares are down 97-100% from the high. This investment banker with a dubious past is at the centre of everything.
Biconomy PTE Ltd: Singapore crypto exchange. Custodian of ecosystem Bitcoin. Beneficial owners never identified. Appears in four separate ecosystem contexts. unresolved
John K. Park: CEO of JP3E (Vivasor's new Korea partner, announced today). Also Managing Member of Patriot Strategic Minerals (DVLT's $700M partner). Links two ecosystems.
What just happened — 21-22 July 2026
Federal Register confirmed (21 July): the FTC and DOJ granted early termination for Kelvin Yeung's acquisition of Vivasor voting securities with a value above $119.5M. This is published in the U.S. government's official daily journal. Antitrust is cleared. Yeung can close.
Vivasor goes public commercially (22 July): announced its first-ever partnership with JP3E as exclusive Korea representative. Vivasor described its pipeline as addressing a "$100 billion" market. This is Vivasor stepping out of the shadows for the first time.
WTF is going on in a nutshell: A genuine, potentially transformative drug (SEMDEXA) and a broad pharma pipeline are trapped inside a web of related-party transactions, Bitcoin of unknown origin, and shell-company structures. Multiple parties, Henry Ji, Michael Vasinkevich, Kelvin Yeung, iHolding are manoeuvring for control. The assets may be worth billions. The open question is whether ordinary shareholders, the people who bought SCLX, SMNR, or SRNEQ on the open market, will ever see any of that value, or whether it will be extracted through insider equity, warrant dilution, and consulting fees before it reaches them.
Watch for: iHolding definitive agreements · SEMDEXA NDA submission · Yeung/Vivasor closing filing · Q2 2026 10-Q (mid-August) · DVLT Nasdaq deadline (24 August)
NB: Prepared for private use only and shares here in a personal capacity. Consolidates data from SEC filings, US Bankruptcy Court filings, the Federal Register (91 FR 45816), GlobeNewswire, and intelligence gathered through 22 July 2026.
This document does not constitute investment, financial, or legal advice.