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BRAVE
NEW WORLD
for their own.
From the start, Soon-Shiong
refused to be trapped by circumstances or tradition. Despite living
in the twilight zone of South Africa’s apartheid — neither “white”
nor “colored” — he studied medicine at the country’s premier
university and managed to get an
internship (for half pay) at the top
“white” hospital. His chosen specialty was the pancreas and, later,
pancreatic cancer. Why? “The
pancreas is by far the most complex organ in the body,” he says.
It didn’t take Soon-Shiong long
to start thinking beyond South Africa. He got a research grant from
the Royal College of Surgeons in
London, and moved with his young
wife, Michele Chan Soon-Shiong,
to Vancouver, to pursue graduate
research. Three years later, UCLA
invited him to join the school’s
faculty. He performed the first
successful pancreatic transplant
on the West Coast.
That’s a career for some doctors. But at 30, Soon-Shiong was
just getting started. He had his
father’s interest in medical chemistry and his own eye for the main
chance. He saw it in pharmaceuticals. He used Asian connections
to build a business manufacturing
HUFFINGTON
12.22.13
generic drugs.
But that was a means to another
end: inventing new drugs. While
working on a NASA grant to study
the behavior of human cells in
weightless space, he became fascinated by the role of protein molecules in cells. If healthy cells grow
by ingesting protein, why not use
albumin protein to deliver cancerkilling drugs to tumor cells?
The ultimate result was Abraxane. It encases a well-known
tumor-fighting drug (paclitaxel)
in injectable nano-packets of protein. Soon-Shiong developed a
complex system for freezing the
material and spraying it through
tiny nozzles to manufacture the
Magic
Johnson
greets SoonShiong at
at an Urban
Economic
Forum cohosted by the
White House
Business
Council and
the U.S. Small
Business
Administration in March
2012. Among
the topics
discussed
were future
entrepreneurs.