Two of the state's most prominent industry associations plan to join forces.

The Utah Information Technology Association and the Utah Life Science Association boards of trustees announced Friday that they have unanimously agreed to merge. They will become the Utah Technology Council once a definitive merger agreement and necessary approvals are in place, mostly likely in March.

The combined organization would represent the interests of about 3,100 IT companies and 200 to 300 life sciences companies in the state.

"It's a rare and fantastic opportunity to further build and unite Utah's outstanding technology community," said UITA's president and chief executive officer, Richard Nelson, who will direct UTC. "By broadening our scope to become a full technology council, I'm confident we will become an even stronger advocate for creating many new high-paying tech jobs in Utah. We want to broaden the technology umbrella and better serve both of these extremely important technology sectors."

Under the terms of the proposed agreement, UTC will continue existing UITA programs and adopt and develop additional ones to represent and advance the life sciences sector. All of the associations' members in good standing will become council members.

UTC will create three new trustee positions to represent the life sciences industry.

Its chairman will be Jack Sunderlage, and Will West will be vice chairman. A new life sciences director position will be added to the executive team.

ULSA's president, Brian Moss, has accepted an assignment with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and will retire from ULSA.

"The UITA and ULSA organizations have been working closely together for the past decade," Moss said in a prepared statement. "We view this evolution into a new and combined organization as a very natural and positive step."

Sunderlage, CEO of ContentWatch Inc., said the combined organization will "gain even more momentum to ensure that our industries' voices are heard."

Nelson said the merger preparation process has been occurring over the past year. The two organizations both have pushed the Utah Science, Technology and Research initiative, "and it caused us to realize that in IT and life sciences over the last few years, there has been a huge convergence of the two industries that were very complementary in most aspects," Nelson said.

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