Soon-Shiong is the chairman of three nonprofit organizations: the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, a research-funding foundation that works in health care and education accessibility;[6] the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health, which aims to change the dissemination of healthcare information;[7] and the Healthcare Transformation Institute, a partnership with the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.[2] He has been a minority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers since 2010, and since June 2018, he has been the owner and executive chairman of the Los Angeles Times.[8]
Soon-Shiong's net worth is $6.2 billion as of 2024.[9] He has been called the richest man in Los Angeles and one of the wealthiest doctors in the world.[10]
Soon-Shiong graduated from the University of Witwatersrand, where he was fourth in his class of 189 and received a bachelor's degree in medicine (MBBCh) at age 23.[13] He completed his medical internship at Johannesburg's General Hospital.[14] He then studied at the University of British Columbia, where he earned a master's degree in 1979,[15] with research awards from the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and the American Association of Academic Surgery.[16]
Soon-Shiong joined UCLA Medical School in 1983 and served on that faculty until 1991,[18][3] as a transplant surgeon.[11] Between 1984 and 1987, he served as an associate investigator at the Center for Ulcer Research and Education.[3] Soon-Shiong performed the first whole-pancreas transplant done at UCLA,[19][20] and he developed and first performed the experimental Type 1 diabetes-treatment known as encapsulated-human-islet transplant, and the "first pig-to-man islet-cell transplant in diabetic patients."[19] After a period in private industry, he returned to UCLA in 2009, serving as a professor of microbiology, immunology, molecular genetics and bioengineering. Soon-Shiong served as a visiting professor at Imperial College, London, in 2011.[21]
In 2010, in partnership with Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, Soon-Shiong established the Healthcare Transformation Institute (HTI).[22] HTI's mission is to promote a shift in health care in the United States by better integrating the three now separate domains of medical science, health delivery, and healthcare finance.[2][23]
In early 2016, Soon-Shiong launched the National Immunotherapy Coalition to encourage rival pharmaceutical companies to work together to test combinations of cancer-fighting drugs.[24] He has also met with former vice president and current US president Joe Biden to discuss approaches to fighting cancer, including conducting genomic sequencing of 100,000 patients to create a large database of potential genetic factors.[25]
In January 2017, as announced by press secretary Sean Spicer, then President-elect Donald Trump met with Soon-Shiong at his Bedminster, New Jersey estate to discuss national medical priorities.[26] According to Politico, Soon-Shiong was seeking a cabinet position.[27] In May 2017, Soon-Shiong was appointed by House Speaker Paul Ryan to the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee, a committee established by the 21st Century Cures Act.[28]
By summer 2021, ImmunityBio had developed a T cell-inducing universal COVID-19 vaccine booster shot that had reached Phase III trials in his native South Africa, with a stated goal of completely blocking transmission and stemming an endemic tide of COVID-19 variants.[30] In December 2021, Soon-Shiong shared pre-clinical results of giving two different vaccine platforms (heterologous) and showed beneficial T cell levels using an adenovirus and mRNA technology.[31]
In September 2021, Soon-Shiong and President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa announced via a virtual press conference a new venture called NantSA with NantWorks to expand the capability of vaccine development for Sub-Saharan Africa.[32] NantWorks has signed a collaboration agreement with the South African government's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation.[33]
In February 2022, Soon-Shiong announced results from ImmunityBio regarding a clinical trial in Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer (NMIBC) with a 24.1 median duration and 71% complete remission.[34]
Business career
Beyond his medical and scientific career, Soon-Shiong has been a businessman during the late 1990s and an investor since the early 2010s.
Pharmaceutical, biotech, and energy
Soon-Shiong purchased Fujisawa, which sold injectable generic drugs, in 1998. He used its revenues to develop Abraxane, which took an existing chemotherapy drug, paclitaxel, and wrapped it in protein that made it easier to deliver to tumors. He became rich after it was approved by regulators and entered the market.[35] In 1991, Soon-Shiong left UCLA to start a diabetes and cancer biotechnology firm called VivoRx Inc. This led to the founding in 1997 of APP Pharmaceuticals, of which he held 80% of outstanding stock and sold to Fresenius SE for $4.6 billion in July 2008.[36] Soon-Shiong later founded Abraxis BioScience (maker of the drug, Abraxane),[5] a company he sold to Celgene in 2010 in a cash-and-stock deal valued at just $2.9 billion, earning Soon-Shiong about $533 million in profits.[37]
Soon-Shiong founded NantHealth in 2007 to provide fiber-optic, cloud-based data infrastructure to share healthcare information.[38] Soon-Shiong went on to found NantWorks in September 2011, whose mission was "to converge ultra-low power semiconductor technology, supercomputing, high performance, secure advanced networks and augmented intelligence to transform how we work, play, and live."[39][40] It owns a number of technology companies in the fields of healthcare, commerce, digital entertainment as well as a venture capital firm in the healthcare, education, science, and technology sectors. Particular technologies include machine vision, object and voice recognition, low powersemiconductors, supercomputing, and networking technologies.[41] In January 2013, he founded another biotech company, NantOmics, to develop cancer drugs based on protein kinase inhibitors. NantOmics and its sister company, NantHealth, were subsidiaries of NantWorks.[42]
In 2013, Soon-Shiong became an early investor in Zoom, the video conferencing company.[43]
In September 2014, NantWorks LLC, a company headed by Soon-Shiong, invested $2.5 million in AccuRadio.[44]
In 2015, Soon-Shiong's NantPharma purchased the drug Cynviloq from Sorrento Therapeutics for $90 million dollars, including more than $1 billion dollars in compensation for reaching regulatory and sales milestones[45] Soon-Shiong did not push forward with FDA approval as the agreement dictated, and instead allowed critical patents and deadlines to lapse, presumably due to his financial interest in another drug that would compete with Cynviloq. This "catch and kill" method of eliminating competition follows a pattern of questionable business practices by Soon-Shiong,[46] and claims of "looting" by the celebrity actress and musician Cher.[47][48]
In 2015, NantWorks LLC invested in Wibbitz in their $8 million series B funding.[49] In July 2015, Soon-Shiong initiated an IPO for NantKwest (formerly ConkWest) that represented the highest value biotech IPO in history, at a market value of $2.6 billion.[50] In April 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported that Soon-Shiong received a pay package in 2015 from NantKwest worth almost $148 million, making him one of the highest paid CEOs.[51] Soon-Shiong is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.[52][53]
In September 2018, his company NantEnergy announced the development of a zinc–air battery with a projected cost of $100 per kilowatt-hour, which is less than one-third the cost of lithium-ion batteries.[54]
In 2019, Soon-Shiong became an investor in Directa Plus, a European-based graphene based technology company, where he owns 28 percent of the company.[55]
In early 2021, Soon-Shiong merged a publicly traded company NantKwest (NASDAQ: NK) with a privately held entity ImmunityBio (formerly NantCell).[56] The new public entity after the merger is known as ImmunityBio, Inc. trading in NASDAQ under ticker symbol: IBRX. Also that year, Soon-Shiong announced a new investment of $29 million in a biorenewables company called NantRenewables in SeaPoint in Savannah, Georgia.[57][58]
In January 2022, Soon-Shiong opened a new manufacturing facility and campus in Cape Town, South Africa with President Ramaphosa.[59] Soon-Shiong and his entities are reported to be investing over 4 billion RAND (~$250 million dollars) into the continent.[60] In February, Soon-Shiong invested in Sienza, a lithium battery company in Pasadena, California.[61]
In February 2018, Soon-Shiong's investment firm NantCapital reached a deal to purchase Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune from Tronc Inc. for "nearly $500 million in cash" as well as the assumption of $90 million in pension obligations.[62] Soon-Shiong, with this acquisition, became one of the first Asian-Americans to be a media proprietor through ownership in a major daily newspaper in the United States.[63] The sale closed on June 18, 2018.[8]
During Soon-Shiong's ownership of the Los Angeles Times, his daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, became interested in the newspaper and sought to influence coverage, in both the newsroom and opinion pages.[66] Many Times staffers expressed alarm at the younger Soon-Shiong's activity, which they viewed as meddling, including privately and publicly contacting staffers to advocate her views.[66]
In 2020, Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board from making any endorsement in the Democratic presidential primaries, overruling its intended endorsement of Elizabeth Warren; the paper did endorse Biden in the general election.[67]
In October 2024, as the Los Angeles Times editorial board was preparing to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, Soon-Shiong blocked the newspaper from making any endorsement.[67][68] This was the first time since 2004 that the newspaper had not endorsed a presidential candidate.[67] In response to Soon-Shiong's decision to block the Harris endorsement, several members of the paper's editorial board resigned in protest, including editorials editor Mariel Garza and two editorial writers, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Greene, and Karin Klein.[68][69] Nearly 2,000 subscribers to the paper unsubscribed in the wake of the decision.[68] A day later, TheWrap reported that the Los Angeles Times editorial board had planned a series of articles tentatively titled "The Case Against Trump" which was killed by Soon-Shiong.[70][71]
Philanthropy
A 2017 Politico report found that Soon-Shiong's research foundation, the Chan Soon-Shiong NantHealth Foundation, which he named after his wife, had spent over 70% on businesses and non-profit organizations that he controlled. Furthermore, it found that most of its grants were awarded to organizations that have business dealings with Soon-Shiong's companies. The Foundation also paid some employees from Soon-Shiong's companies, which is a potentially inappropriate use of charitable funds to cover unrelated business overhead.[27]
The foundation contributed a quarter of a $12 million donation by Soon-Shiong-controlled organizations to the University of Utah to set up a gene mapping project. Control over the grant specifications was given over to Soon-Shiong's donating organizations, and his NantHealth company was awarded the $10 million contract.[27] A subsequent audit report by the Utah government found that the university had failed to follow the state's procurement laws requiring competitive bidding process for public institutions.[72] Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes described the audit as showing that the deal was "trying to Cinderella-slipper something for one person, or for one entity".[73] The university accepted the results of the audit and said that its recommended changes would be made.[72]
^ abLight, Leti McNeill (May 11, 2015). "Visions of progress and courage"(PDF). U Magazine. Vol. 35, no. 2. Los Angeles: UCLA. p. 42. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 11, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2016.
^Whole pancreas transplantation began as a part of multi-organ transplants, in the mid-to-late 1960s, at the University of Minnesota. See Squifflet, J.P.; Gruessner, R.W.; Sutherland, D.E. (2008). "The History of Pancreas Transplantation: Past, Present and Future". Acta Chir. Belg. 108 (3, May–June): 367–378. doi:10.1080/00015458.2008.11680243. PMID18710120. S2CID25795725. The first attempt to cure type 1 diabetes by pancreas transplantation was done at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, on December 17, 1966… [This] opened the door to a period, between the mid-[1970s] to mid-[1980s] where only segmental pancreatic grafts were used... In the late [1970s] – early [1980s], three major events… boosted the development of pancreas transplantation… [At] the Spitzingsee meetings, participants had the idea to renew the urinary drainage technique of the exocrine secretion of the pancreatic graft with segmental graft and eventually with whole pancreaticoduodenal transplant. That was clinically achieved during the mid-[1980s] and remained the mainstay technique during the next decade. In parallel, the Swedish group developed the whole pancreas transplantation technique with enteric diversion. It was the onset of the whole pancreas reign. The enthusiasm for the technique was rather moderated in its early phase due to the rapid development of liver transplantation and the need for sharing vascular structures between both organs, liver and pancreas. During the modern era of immunosuppression, the whole pancreas transplantation technique with enteric diversion became the gold standard… [for SPK, PAK, PTA].
^Seale, Tyrone Alexander (Host); Cyril Ramaphosa; Patrick Soon-Shiong; Glenda Gray; Blade Nzimande; Ebrahim Patel; Eugene Cloete; Mamokgethe Phakeng; Zeblon Z. Vilakazi; Tulio de Oliveira; Phil Mjwara (Guests) (September 23, 2021). President Cyril Ramaphosa attends the launch announcement by Dr Soon-Shiong of NantAfrica COVID-19. Government of South Africa. Retrieved October 8, 2021 – via YouTube.
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