When he picked up the paper one morning in June 2007, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong had no idea that what he was about to read would dramatically alter his life.
Several weeks earlier, Edith Isabel Rodriguez, a “quasi-transient” woman with a history of drug abuse, went to Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital complaining of severe abdominal pains. After writhing on the waiting room floor for 45 minutes as her boyfriend frantically sought help, first from hospital staff and later by calling 911, she died without being treated.
The story became a cause célèbre and ultimately contributed to the hospital’s closure shortly thereafter. It floored Soon-Shiong, a former surgeon at UCLA.
“It’s unconscionable,” he recalled. “I always knew of the troubles, unfortunately, of Martin Luther King, (but) this is just crazy that we can have this kind of negligent care.”
The biotech entrepreneur, who earned billions selling a generic drug company last year, did something about it last week.
His Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation agreed to provide a $100 million underwriting guarantee to help reopen the hospital in 2012 under management by the University of California.
Soon-Shiong plans to address the UC Board of Regents during its Nov. 19 meeting, when the board is to vote on the proposal, which is being spearheaded by Los Angeles County.
Soon-Shiong sent UC President Mark Yudof a private letter Oct. 21 detailing his plan to help the county reopen the hospital. In a statement provided to the Business Journal, John Stobo, UC’s senior vice president for health sciences and services, said the university is pleased with the offer from the foundation, formed by Soon-Shiong and his wife, actress Michele Chan.
“This is yet another example of (the couple’s) commitment to address issues related to access to health care and the needs of the medically underserved,” Stobo said. “We are eager to discuss the details of the offer with the regents at their November meeting.”
Soon-Shiong’s offer has also won the endorsement of some local officials, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who had contacted Soon-Shiong about getting involved in the effort to reopen the hospital after the regents had floated the idea of a public-private partnership.
“This is a physician who cares about patients and who cares about the highest quality of care that can be extended to them,” said Ridley-Thomas, at a press conference last week.
Soon-Shiong said he will seek additional support from well-heeled philanthropists in his drive to raise the level of medical care in the country. He said he plans to have lunch in December with billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, each of whom has contributed billions to improve health care worldwide.
Soon-Shiong said he “will clearly bring up the subject” regarding getting Buffett and Gates to contribute to King’s reopening.
“We have an obligation,” he said, “to address, basically, third-world health care in our own country.”
Soon-Shiong made his mark in the business world developing the cancer-fighting drug Abraxane, and later founded a pair of biotech companies that would become Abraxis BioScience Inc., based in West Los Angeles. He recently retired as chief executive of the company but still serves as chairman.
Soon-Shiong in May ranked No. 1 on the Business Journal’s annual list of the wealthiest people in Los Angeles with an estimated net worth of $6 billion. He netted $3 billion alone when he sold APP Pharmaceuticals, a generic drug maker, last year.
He used the proceeds of his big payday to help start the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation with his wife.
“I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to give back,” he said.
The foundation has recently made some substantial pledges, including separate commitments of $35 million and $100 million to St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.
In the King case, Soon-Shiong encountered some earlier resistance from county officials, who expressed reluctance to partner with Soon-Shiong due to past disputes he has had with business partners, the Los Angeles Times reported.
But the regents encouraged the county to reach out to private individuals and arrange a public-private partnership, which the regents said would create more financial stability.
To help assuage concerns, Soon-Shiong said this commitment would have “no strings attached.”
Ultimately, he wants to be able to provide quality medical care for those who cannot otherwise afford it, because, he said, he cannot shake the feeling he had when he visited the hospital two years ago where Rodriguez died.
“I went to the waiting room where she actually was and where she actually died,” he said.
He walked the decaying halls with the emergency room doctor who explained, with tears in his eyes, how difficult it was to provide care at a hospital serving a community nobody seemed to care about.
“It reminded me so much of what happened in South Africa under the times of apartheid,” said Soon-Shiong, who was born and raised in South Africa. “I treated these children as they were being injured during the Soweto riots and I understood disparities of care could really affect not only a whole community, but it affects a whole generation and it affects a whole nation.”
