Net Worth: $15.4 billion, up 1 percent
LAST YEAR: $15.3 billion
AGE: 63
RESIDENCE: Brentwood
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Pharmaceuticals, health care technology, investments
THE MONEY: Physician billionaire made his fortune selling pharma firms American Pharmaceutical Partners and Abraxis BioScience for more than $9 billion. Continues building on that bounty with his NantWorks health care empire. A downswing for his wmajor biotech stock holdings took bite out of his wealth this year. Despite those losses, summer public offering of Culver City immunotherapy firm NantKwest shined a light on Soon-Shiong’s majority stake. NantKwest also gave him richest 2015 payday of any chief executive in nation: more than $147 million in options and restricted stock.
THE BUZZ: South African-born Soon-Shiong keeps busy building support for his Cancer Moonshot 2020 initiative. The program is seeking to initiate midstage clinical trials for 20 tumor types in 20,000 patients within three years. Ultimate goal is an effective vaccine-based immunotherapy for cancer by 2020. Soon-Shiong crisscrossed the country to tout the program, meeting with Vice President Joe Biden in Washington, D.C., and enlisting partners such as Amgen. Took NantKwest public at $25 a share in July. Rocky market has sunk stock, which traded below $7 at one point. Market volatility prompted Soon-Shiong to postpone an IPO for NantHealth, health care technology arm of parent company NantWorks of Culver City. NantHealth valued at $2 billion after $200 million infusion in June from Chicago health care IT firm AllScripts. Soon-Shiong and wife, actress Michele Chan, donated more than 7 million shares of San Diego biopharmaceutical firm Sorrento Therapeutics to their Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation. Attended ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Willowbrook last spring, having provided a $100 million underwriting guarantee to help Los Angeles County secure credit to fund the hospital. Soon-Shiong finished high school at 16 and med school at 23. After moving to Canada on a fellowship, he was recruited to UCLA in 1980 as researcher. Part owner of Los Angeles Lakers; among those hugging retiring Kobe Bryant after basketball player’s final game in April.
