Patrick Soon-Shiong (; 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.Biographies providing these details include , , and Biographies providing these details include 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.
Early life and education 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.
Career 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.Whole pancreas transplantation began as a part of multi-organ transplants, in the mid-to-late 1960s, at the University of Minnesota. See 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.
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. The drug was approved by the FDA in April 2024 under the name nogapendekin alfa inbakicept-pmln "ANKTIVA".
Furthering cancer related studies, Soon-Shiong and colleagues identified a consistent association between absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) and overall survival across multiple solid tumor types. Their analysis of data from the QUILT clinical trial program suggested that patients with lymphopenia (ALC <1.0 ×10³/μL) had markedly worse outcomes, and that restoration of ALC following treatment correlated with prolonged survival. To test whether lymphocyte restoration could be therapeutically induced, the group investigated nogapendekin alfa inbakicept (NAI, also known as N-803 and marketed as ANKTIVA), an interleukin-15 (IL-15) superagonist designed to stimulate proliferation and activation of natural killer (NK) and CD8⁺ T cells without expanding regulatory T cells. In June 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Expanded Access authorization for ANKTIVA in patients with solid tumors who had progressed after first-line therapy, allowing its use for the treatment of lymphopenia and immune reconstitution in this setting. The work proposed that lymphopenia itself represents a modifiable pathophysiologic state rather than a byproduct of disease or treatment, positioning immune restoration through IL-15 agonism as a potential therapeutic strategy across malignancies.
Business career 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 $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.Palmeri, Christopher. "'Homeless Billionaire' Charms L.A. With $500 Million Gift", Bloomberg News, May 4, 2016
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.
In 2021, 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