Patrick Soon-Shiong

Patrick Soon-Shiong (Chinese: 黄馨祥; pinyin: Huáng Xīnxiáng; born July 29, 1952) is a South African and American businessman, researcher and surgeon who invented Abraxane, a drug used for lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer. He has been the owner and executive chairman of the Los Angeles Times since 2018.

Soon-Shiong received FDA approval for a new class of immunotherapy drug called Anktiva in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer in 2024. 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. He is currently Executive Chairman, Global Chief Medical & Technology Officer at ImmunityBio.

Soon-Shiong is the chairman of Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, a non-profit foundation. He has been a minority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers since 2010. Soon-Shiong's net worth is estimated at US$16.6 billion as of 2026 according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes. He has been called the richest man in Los Angeles and one of the wealthiest doctors in the world.

Soon-Shiong was born in Port Elizabeth (then part of the Union of South Africa) to Chinese immigrant parents who fled China during the Japanese occupation in World War II. His parents were Hakka Chinese 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 of Medicine 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 surgery in 1979. He also earned 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 is a United States citizen.

Soon-Shiong served on the faculty of the UCLA Medical School from 1983 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. 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 Trump's 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.

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 $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.

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. In 2023, he was recognized as one of the 100 most influential celebrities in oncology by OncoDaily.

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.

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.