October 02, 2009
$65-Million Pledged for Calif. Health Center
By Maria Di Mento
Patrick Soon-Shiong, a pharmaceuticals executive, and his wife Michele B. Chan, an actress, have pledged $65-million to Saint John’s Health Center, in Santa Monica, Calif.
Mr. Soon-Shiong, whose wealth was pegged in September at $4-billion by Forbes magazine, founded the Los Angeles pharmaceutical company, Abraxis BioScience. In 2008 he sold another business, APP Pharmaceuticals, in Schaumburg, Ill., to Fresenius Kabi Pharmaceuticals, a German corporation, for $5.6-billion.
The health center plans to use $55-million of the gift for research programs at its John Wayne Cancer Institute and to support joint research projects with other institutions, said Bill Watson, the center’s chief development officer. The remaining $10-million of the donation will be used to recruit physicians and scientists.
This recent pledge comes on top of $35-million the couple pledged to the health center in 2007 to renovate the hospital and establish a center for translational sciences.
The couple has paid $45-million in cash toward both pledges, and plans to pay off the remainder over the next five years, said Mr. Watson.
With their donations, Mr. Soon-Shiong and Ms. Chan hope to make Saint John’s a center for innovative medical care and research.
“We have the wealthy in Beverly Hills where we can treat them at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA, and 10 miles south you have people who cannot get care, that’s unconscionable,” Mr. Soon-Shiong told the Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Soon-Shiong worked as a surgeon and faculty member at the University of California at Los Angeles, but made his fortune by developing the cancer treatment drug, Abraxane. He serves on the Saint John’s Health Center Foundation’s board.
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