America’s Most Successful Immigrants

Patrick Soon-Shiong

Patrick Soon-Shiong was born in South Africa. His parents were immigrants from China who left the country when Japan invaded during WWII. Soon-Shioing went to school and received his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Witwatersrand. He did his internship as Johannesburg’s General Hospital and moved to the U.S. to finish his training and become a surgeon.

So just what makes him worth $9 billion? The biggest thing he is known for is he helped discover the drug Abraxane and performed the first pancreatic islet cell transplant. He founded a pharmaceutical company where he held 80% of the stock.

What is he Doing Now?

Soon-Shiong founded a company called NantHealth in 2007, which is a system that helps analyze and share genetic data between healthcare providers. The program can also analyze information from a tumor in just 18 seconds. Soon-Shiong is big into research and founded another company called NanOmics, which is to develop a cancer drug.

In addition, he founded the Healthcare Transformation Institute, which hopes to shift the U.S.’s health system. His investments are not just limited to medical research, however. In 2014, he invested $2.5 million into AccuRadio, which is a growing music webcaster.