Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has rolled out another health care company and announced two new high-tech care programs in the L.A. biotech billionaire’s ongoing effort to revolutionize disease treatment and health care delivery.
Soon-Shiong’s new company, NantOmics, is developing cutting-edge research that he bought back from Celgene Corp., which purchased his West L.A. business, Abraxis Bioscience Inc., for $2.9 billion in 2010.
Soon-Shiong, a former UCLA cancer researcher, tops the Business Journal’s list of Wealthiest Angelenos.
Celgene, a Summit, N.J., drug maker, was more interested in the billion-dollar blockbuster potential of Abraxis’ cancer treatment Abraxane than the early stage research that Soon-Shiong was developing at the time of the sale.
In a discussion with the Business Journal last week, Soon-Shiong noted that the challenge that cancer patients often face is comparable to playing the arcade game Whac-A-Mole, as the disease can reappear more resistant than it was before treatment.
“We have to keep the mole, or cancer, from coming back in a harder-to-treat form,” he said.
NantOmics’ technology aims to stay a step ahead of a mutating cancer with kinase inhibitors, a type of enzyme that can be used in conjunction with Abraxane and other cancer drugs. A UCLA study of 40 pancreatic cancer patients showed promising signs that the approach can block a tumor from forming new blood vessels that it uses to feed itself.
Soon-Shiong said a larger study is planned.
For now, NantOmics, which is part of the NantWorks LLC family of companies, is financed primarily by Soon-Shiong’s California Capital Equity fund.
Also, NantWork’s NantHealth company is preparing to roll out two initiatives that leverage information technology to improve treatment. The first is Advanced Cancer Care for Life, which NantHealth is running in partnership with Blue Shield of California. It will test in California first and focus on a providing more integrated approach to cancer treatment.
The second is America’s House Call. It combines computer monitoring of patients being treated for cancer and other diseases with traditional house calls as needed by a network of doctors and nurses.
“NantOmics is the pharmaceutical company for the 21st century, with NantHealth the advanced health care delivery system that aims to transform the way we deliver health care,” Soon-Shiong said.
Matchup
Fitness guru Jake Steinfeld’s FitOrbit.com personal training service has launched a partnership with a Match.com premium dating site in time to take advantage of the Valentine’s Day marketing season.
The premium dating site, Chemistry.com, is a subsidiary of Dallas-based Match.com. It uses a proprietary test that clients can take before a first date. FitOrbit offers a subscription service that matches clients with the right online personal trainer who will create a customized nutrition and fitness plan.
Chemistry will promote FitOrbit as a service on its site.
“I can’t think of two businesses that are more natural partners,” Steinfeld said. “Our two brands give consumers the ability to take control of their lives and change them with speed and convenience. We also know that joining a dating site encourages people to get in shape.”
FitOrbit, a subscription service founded in 2009, has signed similar partnerships with other businesses, including Carlsbad weight loss and nutrition company Jenny Craig Inc.
North County Expansion
Kaiser Permanente has begun construction of a medical office building in Lancaster for its members at the northern edge of Los Angeles County.
The 136,000-square-foot facility, which when completed in late 2013 will be the city’s largest medical office facility, will offer space for 66 health care providers. It also will include three major outpatient procedure rooms, a chemotherapy and nonchemotherapy infusion center, imaging, laboratory and pharmacy. Kaiser already operates smaller offices Palmdale and elsewhere in Lancaster.
Located at Avenue L and Fifth Street West, the Kaiser Permanente Specialty Medical Office Building also will be the first Kaiser Permanente building of its type in the region built to qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
The Kaiser building isn’t the only significant health care construction under way in Lancaster. City of Hope in Duarte is building a cancer center next to Antelope Valley Hospital. The center is expected to open later this year.
Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 232.
