Patrick Soon-Shiong

Patrick Soon-Shiong (born July 29, 1952) is a South African and American businessman, investor, medical researcher, and transplant surgeon. He is the inventor of the drug Abraxane, which is used for lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer. Soon-Shiong is the founder of NantWorks, a network of healthcare, biotech, and artificial intelligence startups; an adjunct professor of surgery and executive director of the Wireless Health Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles; and a visiting professor at Imperial College London and Dartmouth College.Biographies providing these details include , , and

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; the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health, which aims to change the dissemination of healthcare information; and the Healthcare Transformation Institute, a partnership with the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. 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''.

Soon-Shiong's net worth is US$11.3 billion as of 2025 according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has been called the richest man in Los Angeles and one of the wealthiest doctors in the world.

Early life and education

Soon-Shiong was born in Port Elizabeth in the Union of South Africa in present-day South Africa, to Chinese immigrant parents who fled China during the Japanese occupation in World War II. His parents were Hakka originally from Meixian District in Guangdong province. His ancestral surname is Huang (黃).

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. He completed his medical internship at Johannesburg's General Hospital. He then studied at the University of British Columbia, where he earned a master's degree in 1979, and an M.D from University of Witwatersrand. He received research awards from the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and the American Association of Academic Surgery.

He immigrated to the United States and began surgical training at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and became a board-certified surgeon in 1984. Soon-Shiong is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Canada) and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was granted United States citizenship.

Career

Soon-Shiong joined UCLA Medical School in 1983 and served on that faculty until 1991, as a transplant surgeon. Between 1984 and 1987, he served as an associate investigator at the Center for Ulcer Research and Education. Soon-Shiong performed the first whole-pancreas transplant done at UCLA, 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." 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 was a visiting professor at Imperial College, London, in 2011.

In 2010, in partnership with Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, Soon-Shiong established the Healthcare Transformation Institute (HTI). 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.

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. He also met with Joe Biden in 2015 to discuss approaches to fighting cancer, including conducting genomic sequencing of 100,000 patients to create a large database of potential genetic factors.

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. According to Politico, Soon-Shiong was seeking a cabinet position. 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.

In 2017, Soon-Shiong and his wife were invited by the Smithsonian to be part of the permanent exhibit "Many Voices, One Nation" in the National Museum of American History in Washington DC.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

Business career

Beyond his medical and scientific career, Soon-Shiong was a businessman in the late 1990s and an investor since the early 2010s.

Pharmaceutical, biotech, and energy

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 the outstanding stock, and which was ultimately sold to Fresenius SE for $4.6 billion in July 2008. Soon-Shiong purchased Fujisawa, which sold injectable generic drugs, in 1998. Soon-Shiong later founded Abraxis BioScience, with which he would 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. Abraxis was 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.

Soon-Shiong founded NantHealth in 2007 to provide fiber-optic, cloud-based data infrastructure to share healthcare information. 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." 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 power semiconductors, supercomputing, and networking technologies. 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.

In 2013, Soon-Shiong became an early investor in Zoom, the video conferencing company.

In September 2014, NantWorks LLC, a company headed by Soon-Shiong, invested $2.5 million in AccuRadio.

In 2015, Soon-Shiong's NantPharma purchased the drug Cynviloq from Sorrento Therapeutics for $90 million, including more than $1 billion in compensation for reaching regulatory and sales milestones. 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, and claims of "looting" by the celebrity actress and musician Cher.

In 2015, NantWorks LLC invested in Wibbitz in their $8 million series B funding. 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. 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. Soon-Shiong is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.

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.

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.

In early 2021, Soon-Shiong merged publicly-traded NantKwest (NASDAQ: NK) with privately-held ImmunityBio (formerly NantCell). The new public entity after the merger is known as ImmunityBio, Inc., trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IBRX. Also that year, Soon-Shiong announced a new investment of $29 million in a biorenewables company called NantRenewables at SeaPoint in Savannah, Georgia.

In January 2022, Soon-Shiong opened a new manufacturing facility and campus in Cape Town, South Africa with President Ramaphosa. Soon-Shiong and his entities are reported to be investing over 4 billion RAND (~$250 million) into the continent. In February, Soon-Shiong invested in Sienza, a lithium battery company in Pasadena, California.

Ownership of the ''Los Angeles Times''

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. 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. The sale closed on June 18, 2018.

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.

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.Daniel Lippman, Christopher Cadelago and Max Tani
Tensions rise between the LA Times and its billionaire owner
''Los Angeles Times'' (September 18, 2022). 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.

In July 2023, Soon-Shiong sold the ''San Diego Union-Tribune'' to MediaNews Group.

In October 2024, as the ''Los Angeles Times'' editorial board was preparing to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election, Soon-Shiong blocked the newspaper from making any endorsement. This was the first time since 2004 that the newspaper had not endorsed a presidential candidate. In response to Soon-Shiong's decision to block the Harris endorsement, there were a wave of subscription cancellations, staff anger, and 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. Harry Litman, a senior legal affairs columnist for the Times’ opinion page, also resigned stating, "My resignation is a protest and visceral reaction against the conduct of the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong." Nearly 2,000 subscribers to the paper unsubscribed in the wake of the decision. 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.

In November 2024, the ''Los Angeles Times'' fired its entire editorial board, and Soon-Shiong announced plans to replace them with a new team. Soon-Shiong defended the restructuring for a "fair and balanced newspaper,” echoing the Fox News slogan. Soon-Shiong further promised a "rebirth" for the newspaper, adding "Every American’s views should be heard."

In December 2024, Soon-Shiong announced that the ''Los Angeles Times'' would employ an AI-powered bias meter into the newspaper's coverage. The announcement came after Soon-Shiong expressed his desire to include more conservative voices in the paper's opinion section, following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election.

In January 2025, Soon-Shiong was accused of diverting the meaning of a ''Los Angeles Times'' op-ed which opposed the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary. Soon-Shiong had previously endorsed Kennedy Jr. for the role. The op-ed's author, Eric Reinhart, said that portions of his piece which explicitly called against the confirmation were cut out without his approval, shortly before publication. One of the removed excerpts argued that Kennedy Jr. would "inflict preventable death on illions of Americans due to his "egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence". The op-ed was published under the headline "Trump’s healthcare disruption could pay off — if he pushes real reform". In contrast, Reinhart's suggested title was "RFK Jr’s Wrecking Ball Won’t Fix Public Health". When the op-ed was published, Soon-Shiong shared it on X along with a comment saying that Kennedy Jr. was "our best chance of ushing reform in the American healthcare system.

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 he controlled. Furthermore, it found that most of its grants were awarded to organizations that did business 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.

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. A subsequent audit report by the Utah government found that the university had failed to follow the state's procurement laws requiring a competitive bidding process for public institutions. 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". The university accepted the results of the audit and said that its recommended changes would be made.

The family foundation has partnered with the Clinton Foundation.

Politics

Soon-Shiong and his family were major donors to the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign. According to ''Politico'', Soon-Shiong twice met privately with Donald Trump during his 2016–2017 presidential transition in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a position in the administration.

In January 2025, Soon-Shiong met with Cheryl Hines and actor/comedian Rob Schneider to discuss creating a talk show which Schneider envisioned as being a conservative version of '' The View''.

Personal life

Soon-Shiong is married to former actress Michele B. Chan. They have two children, including Nika Soon-Shiong, and live in Los Angeles. He has committed to the Giving Pledge and has pledged to give away at least half of his wealth to philanthropy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soon-Shiong, Patrick
1952 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American inventors
20th-century American physicians
20th-century South African businesspeople
20th-century South African physicians
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