Move over Elon Musk. SA is celebrating another home-grown world-class creator — this time in the field of bioscience.
Until this week, Patrick Soon-Shiong, 68, was a relatively unknown name for many in the country of his birth. But after Biovac's announcement on Thursday many may be wondering just who Soon-Shiong is.
Cape Town-based vaccine manufacturer Biovac announced it had formed a partnership with Californian cell and immunotherapy product manufacturer ImmunityBio to manufacture the US firm's candidate Covid-19 vaccine.
The vaccine product is being tested in the form of a tablet which, according to Biovac CEO Morena Makhoana, will be a game changer as it will not have to be stored at the low temperatures the injectable vaccines do.
ImmunityBio MD Soon-Shiong said that a billion people would not get vaccinated if the cold chain had to be relied on.
• He is number 91 on the Forbes richest 400 list
• He is number 237 on the Forbes billionaires list
— According to Forbes
The companies began talks in July last year and the ImmunityBio vaccine should be ready by early 2022.
But ImmunityBio is just one of the ventures the Gqeberha-born Soon-Shiong is heading up.
The billionaire businessman, who according to Forbes is currently worth $8.1bn, is a transplant surgeon, bioscientist and media mogul.
The owner of the title of the richest doctor in the world made most of his money from his creation of cancer drug Abraxane, effective in lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer treatment.
Soon-Shiong was born in SA on July 29 1952 to Chinese immigrant parents who had fled their country during WWII.
According to Forbes, he graduated from high school at 16 and received a bachelor's degree in medicine from the University of Witwatersrand when he was 23 years old. He interned at Johannesburg General Hospital, now the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.
He earned his master's degree in 1973 at the University of British Columbia and in 1977 moved to Canada with his wife Michele Chen where he worked as a surgical resident at Vancouver General Hospital.
The couple moved to the US in 1984 and Soon-Shiong began surgical training at the University of California. The couple now have two children.
The doctor became a businessman in 1991 when he started diabetes and cancer biotechnology firm VivoRx Inc. Six years later Soon-Shiong held 80% of the newly-founded APP Pharmaceuticals which was sold in 2008 for $4.6bn to German health-care company Fresenius SE.
This vaccine can be taken orally by swallowing a capsule or placing it under the tongue, or administered by injection.
According to Forbes, in 2008 and 2010 he sold his drug companies Abraxis American Pharmaceutical Partners for a combined $9,1bn.
His cancer medication company NantKwest went public in 2015 and a year later medical company NantHealth also went public.
NantHealth is one of many start-ups under Soon-Shiong's NantWorks. In 2018 NantWorks bought the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Tribune for $500m. The company also has stakes in media firm Tribune Publishing and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
And recently ImmunityBio was selected for Operation Warp Speed, a US public ——private partnership to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
Speaking to Sunday Times about this latest project with Biovac, Soon-Shiong said there wasn't anybody else in the world that had taken one vaccine and given it three routes of administration.
ImmunityBio's candidate vaccine can be taken orally by swallowing a capsule or placing it under the tongue, or administered by injection.
SA could have its own vaccine manufacturing capability in as little as three years if the deal with Biovac comes to fruition.
Makhoana said if it could be distributed in the form of a tablet, it would be a “game changer”.
“There's a billion people who won't get vaccinated if we rely on the cold chain,” Soon-Shiong said.
“If those billion people don't get vaccinated and they get infected — especially in places where there's HIV and immune suppression — you will have continuous mutations because the viral evolution will cause this virus to find a way.”
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