No, i actually just pulled my first apothecary recently. I had it sitting at rank 4 for before the maintenance and fully equipped. After the maintenance I leveled some food champions up and fed them to apothecary to rank him up to rank 5. Right after i immediately ascended him up to 5 and went into the equipment to see what he was sitting at after that and there was nothing on him anymore. I'm honestly unsure what could have happened to it all and why or where it disappeared.