Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s latest philanthropic endeavor serves as an expression of gratitude to an African-born mentor who helped the biotech billionaire get his start in Los Angeles.
The Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation has donated $4 million to the University of California Global Health Institute. The money will be used for programs with the goal of improving the health of vulnerable people and communities around the world.
Soon-Shiong and his wife, actress Michele Chan, were born and raised in South Africa. He received surgical and research training at the University of British Columbia. In 1980, was recruited to UCLA by Haile Debas, a gastrointestinal surgeon who is now senior global health adviser at UC San Francisco.
A native of Eritrea, Debas in 2009 became founding executive director of the Global Health Institute, which received some of its initial money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Soon-Shiong and Chan initially made an anonymous gift to the institute in 2011.
The latest installment from the couple’s foundation will pay for additional research fellowships and scholarships that send UC faculty, researchers and students to Africa and bring their African counterparts to California. The gift will also further the creation of a UC master’s degree program in global health, with special emphasis on women’s health care issues.
“The global health initiative is really an opportunity for Haile, and now us, to really give back to Africa,” Soon-Shiong said.
In line with his interest in using technology to improve access to health care, he also expects some of the money will be used for online lecture series, symposiums and other events at UC campuses around the state.
“One of the missions of the institute is to create leaders,” said Tom Coates, UCLA-based co-director of the institute. “We have this incredible university system here, with a diversity of resources that can be brought to bear on global health issues.”
Outpatient Robotics
In two years, the Khalili Center for Bariatric Care has come a long way from its origins as just another Beverly Hills weight-loss surgery practice.
Millions of dollars have been invested in its affiliated K and B Surgical Center, used to install new surgical suites at the Wilshire Boulevard medical office building and recruit a hospitality expert from the Four Seasons hotel chain to upgrade customer service. The center has recruited more than 26 affiliated surgeons in specialties including urology; gastroenterology; neurology; and even hyperhidrosis, which is excessive sweating.
Now the center is expanding into robotic surgery, a rare offering for an outpatient center. Dr. Gregg Kai Nishi, a bariatric and trauma specialist, is using the center’s recently acquired da Vinci surgical equipment, manufactured by Intuitive Surgical Inc. Several weeks ago, he performed the nation’s first robotic single-incision hernia repair operation in an outpatient environment.
“In the area of minimally invasive surgery, the ability to perform procedures like this outside a hospital setting opens a lot of opportunities to lower health care costs and create a better experience for the patient,” Nishi said.
Business Briefs
Lion Biotechnologies Inc. has completed a private financing with institutional and other accredited investors with net proceeds of $21.6 million. The West L.A. cancer treatment developer, led by Chief Executive Manish Singh, will use much of the money for late-stage clinical studies on its immune system-based treatments for advanced melanoma. … City of Hope has become the first National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center on the West Coast to provide a Chinese-language website for current and potential patients. While the Duarte specialty hospital attracts patients from around the world, 29 percent of residents in the San Gabriel Valley are of Chinese heritage, with many speaking and reading Chinese as their primary language. … Fasha Mahjoor, founder and chief executive of Phenomenex Inc., was one of only five chief executives voted among the top 100 analytical chemistry professionals in a recent issue of Analytical Scientist, an industry publication. Phenomenex is a Torrance testing company that specializes in drug development, food safety and environmental quality monitoring using chromatography, which separates molecules in a substance to identify the content, purity and quantity of its chemical elements.
Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached at [email protected] (323) 549-5225, ext. 232.
