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Biotech Billionaire Wields New Weapons for Fighting Cancer

Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has a modest proposal: cure cancer, eradicate influenza and maybe save the world. I’m reminded of Tony Stark, if the Marvel superhero were a 61-year-old, bespectacled man with a graceful South African lilt.

OK, there may be a touch of hyperbole in the above, but it’s not far off. And the man’s story could serve as inspiration for those interested in the big business of biotechnology. He delivered a lecture at The Scripps Research Institute about attacking cancer at its root — using big data, genome sequencing and protein analysis to craft something close to a cure.

Soon-Shiong, a lauded scientist and keen businessman whose net worth is $9 billion, is the richest American in the health care industry — and the wealthiest in Los Angeles. He believes that studying a patient’s genes, and the proteins that they code for, can help doctors tailor existing chemotherapy drugs to fit a patient’s needs.

Soon-Shiong recently put his theory to work in treating a young San Diego woman with cervical cancer. She didn’t respond to five chemotherapy drugs and “was on her death bed.” Soon-Shiong’s team sequenced her entire genome and learned that the HPV virus — which triggered the cancer — had actually embedded itself into her genes. By focusing in on the affected gene, they found that the cancer was caused by an excess of a certain protein that responds better to Herceptin, a drug that is approved for treating breast cancer.

To get access to that drug, the treating oncologist actually had to fudge the truth with insurers and say the cancer was of the breast and not the cervix. The patient got the Herceptin, and her prognosis improved dramatically.

This is just one instance of Soon-Shiong’s work, but it’s indicative that delving into the genome and understanding the proteomics — the composition of the proteins that the genes create — could help unlock far more effective treatments.

Soon-Shiong is developing a number of initiatives — setting up centers around the world with former President Bill Clinton and others to do population-wide genome analysis. His new company, NantWorks LLC, is working to converge semiconductor technology, supercomputing and advanced networks with biologic data. He also announced that his team has discovered a treatment mechanism that can “wipe out all strands of influenza.” In addition to cancer, after all, he’s interested in studying ways to control global pandemics. No big deal.

Soon-Shiong is a self-made man. He grew up in apartheid-era South Africa, and despite facing discrimination for his Chinese heritage he rose to prominence as a surgeon. He moved to Los Angeles 30 years ago, and in the late 1990s bought a struggling generic drug company by cobbling together loans.

He turned that business around and made it wildly profitable, and he used its assets to develop a novel breast cancer drug called Abraxane, which he sold to New Jersey-based biotech giant Celgene Corp. for $3 billion in 2010. He also sold his generics business, called American Pharmaceutical Partners, to German life sciences company Fresenius SE for $5.6 billion. Notably, he bought out Magic Johnson’s 4.5 percent stake in the LA Lakers. Biotechnology is big business.

He’s pushing the integration of wireless health into genomics because he believes that integrating real-time patient data — like MRI scans and blood pressure — with genetic information can help physicians glean a far more accurate vision of a patient’s condition.

Bear in mind that much of the research in this arena is happening among San Diego companies and research institutions. The auditorium was packed with San Diego’s life sciences glitterati; I spotted ResMed Inc. founder and Chairman Peter Farrell in the audience, among others.

The free talk was sponsored by the University of California, San Diego Center for Ethics in Science & Technology, which is holding a lecture series focused on cancer called “The Emperor of All Maladies.” The series is named after a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee, who will be speaking at Scripps on Feb. 25.

• • •

Yet another biotech has joined the initial public offering parade. La Jolla-based Auspex Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced the pricing of its $82.8 million initial public offering — just a month after it raised $35 million in venture funding.

The company will release 7 million shares of its common stock, priced at $12 per share.

Auspex initially filed for the IPO confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 21, 2013. It will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “ASPX.”

In January, it raised $20 million in a Series E equity round from Deerfield Management Co. and others, and a $15 million, four-year venture loan from Oxford Finance LLC.

Auspex is in Phase III clinical trials for its drug that treats chorea — involuntary twisting and writhing movements — associated with Huntington’s disease. The company is also developing drugs for other movement disorders like Tourette’s syndrome.

Auspex, founded in 2001, ushered in a new C-suite this past October. It had 13 full-time employees and a number of consultants as of Dec. 31, 2013, according to a regulatory filing.

Send news about locally based health care organizations, biotech and clean-tech to Meghana Keshavan at mkeshavan@sdbj.com. She can be reached at 858-277-6359.

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