Gqeberha-born man who finished school at 16, and is now the richest man in Los Angeles
Patrick Soon-Shiong left South Africa after completing high school aged 16 and medical school at 23, and is now the richest man in Los Angeles with a net worth of $8.4 billion (R139.1 billion).
Born in Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqeberha, in 1952, Soon-Shiong is one of the wealthiest doctors in the world and among the richest people in the United States.
His parents fled China following the Japanese invasion and settled in South Africa, where they worked as shopkeepers.
His father was also a herbalist. Growing up under apartheid, Soon-Shiong has described his childhood as strangely normal, explaining that as a Chinese South African, he was classified as neither black nor white.
Despite the racial restrictions of the era, he grew up with friends from different communities and excelled academically.
He completed high school at just 16 and graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand medical school at age 23, finishing among the top students in a class of 200.
As a Chinese doctor, he needed government permission to practise and earned only half the salary of some of his peers.
While studying medicine, he met his future wife, actress Michele B. Chan, at a basketball game. The couple married in 1977 and moved to Canada, where Soon-Shiong began his medical career in North America.
After completing his residency training, he joined the University of California system and became the youngest professor of surgery at UCLA.
By the age of 30, he had already performed pioneering pancreas and kidney transplant procedures.
Soon-Shiong later shifted his focus to islet cell transplantation, a less invasive treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes.
After taking a sabbatical, he successfully carried out one of the first such procedures at St. Vincent Medical Centre in Los Angeles.
Although he earned international recognition as a surgeon, it was biotechnology that ultimately made him a billionaire.
Soon-Shiong didn’t forget about South Africa
In 1991, he left academia to launch the biotechnology company VivoRx. He later founded APP Pharmaceuticals and subsequently established Abraxis BioScience, where he developed Abraxane, a breakthrough cancer treatment.
The drug improved the delivery of the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel by binding it to a protein that helped target tumours more effectively.
Abraxane became particularly important in the treatment of pancreatic cancer and generated billions of dollars in revenue.
Soon-Shiong sold APP Pharmaceuticals in 2008 and Abraxis BioScience in 2010 for a combined $9.1 billion.
His interests have since expanded far beyond medicine. He became a minority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010 and entered the media industry in 2018.
This happened when his investment firm acquired the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune in a deal valued at nearly $500 million.
Despite spending most of his adult life abroad, Soon-Shiong has maintained strong ties to South Africa.
In 2021, he joined Cyril Ramaphosa to announce NantSA, a venture aimed at strengthening vaccine development and pharmaceutical manufacturing on the continent.
The initiative led to the launch of a major vaccine manufacturing campus in Cape Town in 2022 in partnership with the South African government.
The facility focused on advanced mRNA and T-cell vaccine technologies and is designed to support the production of treatments and vaccines for diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and cancer.
The region has successfully drawn major international capital. Biovac recently secured a R1.8 billion ($110 million) financing package backed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
The new vaccine manufacturing hubs are transforming the Western Cape into the biotech capital of Africa, driving billions in foreign direct investment and creating thousands of jobs.
The Biovac Institute’s massive expansion alone is scaling to double its internal workforce, adding over 340 specialised jobs.
The construction, supply chain, and auxiliary services surrounding the new Biovac site are projected to generate roughly 7,000 indirect jobs across the province.
Forbes estimated that his net worth has climbed to $8.4 billion (R139.1 billion) in 2026, ranking as the 308th richest man in the world.
Today, Soon-Shiong remains deeply involved in both healthcare and business. Through his company ImmunityBio, he is advancing new cancer immunotherapy treatments while also overseeing efforts to modernise the Los Angeles Times.
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