Drawn by Talent, the World's Richest Doctor Gobbles Up More Land in Phoenix

Drawn By Talent, World’s Richest Doctor Snaps Up Land in Phoenix
February 23, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

PHOENIX – Patrick Soon-Shiong, who has invested millions in a network of pharmaceutical companies, is continuing to focus investment efforts in the Phoenix area to bolster cancer research as well as expand real estate holdings in the area for Pharmaceutical research and development, the Phoenix Business Journal reported this morning.

Last week Soon-Shiong’s MoonShot 2020 formed the Pediatrics Consortium, which is focused on bringing the “promise of combined immunotherapy as the next-generation standard of cancer care” to children diagnosed with the disease. Soon-Shiong is snapping up real estate in the Phoenix Biomedical Campus to support his initiatives in that area, the Journal reported. Soon-Shiong told the Journal that the Phoenix area has a plethora of talent who can support the MoonShot 2020 project, among others. Soon-Shiong’s NantWorks, LLC, which is focused on developing immunotherapies for cancer, already has a presence in the Phoenix area and is working with Arizona State University to expand the biomedical campus.

Soon-Shiong, who was dubbed the world’s richest doctor by Forbes, has a long history of backing cancer therapy development. In May Culver City, Calif.-based NantBioscience, Inc., a division of NantWorks, Soon-Shiong’s umbrella company, reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it had received another $100 million into funding from NantWorks. Additionally in May, NantWorks acquired cancer treatment Cynviloq after buying a subsidiary of Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. for more than $1.3 billion.

NantKwest, a division of NantWorks, is developing “the natural killer cell” as a first-line defense in cancer treatment. Natural Killer (NK) cells have the “innate ability to rapidly seek and destroy abnormal cells, such as cancer or virally-infected cells, without prior exposure or activation by other support molecules,” the company said on its website. The company is moving into Phase II clinical trials to use it NK cells as a treatment for Merkel cell carcinoma.

The latest mission, the MoonShot 2020 has a central mission to design, initiate and finish randomized clinical trials in up to 20 tumor types in cancers of all stages in 20,000 patients by the year 2020. MoonShot 2020 is made up of a coalition of companies, including Celgene , Amgen and Merck KgaA . The coalition formed the National Immunotherapy Coalition (NIC) to develop and test combination therapies for various forms of cancers. The programs that will run under the NIC will focus on Phase I and Phase II clinical trials to treat various tumor types for cancers including breast, lung, prostate, ovarian, brain, head and neck, multiple myeloma, sarcoma and pancreatic cancer. The NIC has hopes of enrolling 20,000 patients by 2020.

“The era of immunotherapy has taken the oncology world by storm. For the first time in 40 years, there is a glimmer that we may be able to win this war against cancer,” Soon-Shiong said in a statement.

In addition to NantWorks, Soon-Shiong is also the former founder of Abraxis and American Pharmaceutical Partners, which he sold for a combined $9.1 billion. He also invented the drug Abraxane, for use against pancreatic cancer.

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