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of the system, too.
After all, health care is onesixth of the economy, and the
Baby Boom is aging fast.
But, at a youthful 61, SoonShiong may have the right combination of polymathic mind, medical experience, research chops,
financial resources, ego and sa lesmanship to get his comprehensive
“Rocket Ship” off the ground before anyone else.
Indeed, parts of the flowcharts
have come to life. They include a
supercomputing facility in Arizona for rapidly sequencing entire
human genomes; a national highspeed network called National
LambdaRail; a research “bank”
with tissue samples and sequenced
genomes of cancer patients; a company that produces low-power
medical monitors for easy home
use; another that produces sophisticated body monitors; and
research affiliations with hospitals,
clinics and cancer-care centers
nationwide. He also has deals with
AT&T, Verizon and Vodafone.
Last month, Soon-Shiong
struck a deal with government officials in London to provide data
processing services to the U.K.’s
DNA data bank.
“In the past, the scientific,
HUFFINGTON
12.22.13
technological and digital pieces
did not in exist to assemble the
whole,” Soon-Shiong says. “Now
they do. I like to look for patterns,
in science and life. It’s what I do.”
Only an interconnected, instantaneous, molecule-to-manufacturer
managed care system can tap science and save money, he insists.
Studying Soon-Shiong’s flowcharts recently, a potential tech
vendor marveled at what, at first
glance, seemed like the work of a
The richest man in Los Angeles is
methodically constructing a far
more fundamental medical effort:
a digitally enabled, science-driven,
personalized health care system.
NASA programmer and a physics
professor who stayed up too late
one night.
“Looks like you’re trying to boil
the ocean here,” the vendor said,
using a dismissive engineering
phrase for an answer too large for
the problem.
“Let me correct you,” SoonShiong replied in his stately
South African accent. “I am boiling the ocean.”
If anyone can boil the ocean, it
might be Soon-Shiong, says Dr.
Eric Topol, author of The Creative
Destruction of Medicine and the
director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jol-