Nevada Cancer Institute gets OK to emerge from Chapter 11

The Nevada Cancer Institute has received formal approval for its plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

When all the documents are finalized in about a month, the institute will continue to raise money for medical research in a greatly reduced form.

The board of directors has dropped from 11 members late last year to four: MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Jim Murren; his wife, Heather Murren; NV Energy Chairman and CEO Michael Yackira; and Dr. Ikram Khan, a medical consultant who also works with MGM.

Three of the institute's five officers are employed by the restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group and will soon depart. Only corporate secretary Justine Harrison, a long-time staffer and former director, will draw pay at $100,000 a year as a part-time contractor.

The institute has trimmed its debt from about $100 million to a $13 million, no-interest loan that matures in five years.

It also will attempt to lease the 184,000-square-foot research building at 10530 Discovery Drive to various science-oriented tenants, with the first being researchers formerly employed by the institute who have transferred to the Desert Research Institute.

The main building and clinical practice were sold to University of California, San Diego in January for $18 million.