NantWorks CEO and Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 founder recognized for visionary leadership and commitment to improving health quality and transforming cancer care
Keynote address on Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 and the Future of Medicine at the Franklin Institute on April 21
CULVER CITY, Calif. – April 20, 2016 – The Franklin Institute has awarded Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, NantWorks CEO and leader of the Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 program, with the prestigious Bower Award for Business Leadership. The award recognizes his visionary leadership in digital medical technology and his commitment to improving healthcare quality and access through the initiatives of the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, as well as his leadership in transforming cancer care through immunotherapy.
Dr. Soon-Shiong, a surgeon, scientist and philanthropist, has dedicated his medical and scientific career to combating life-threatening diseases such as diabetes and cancer. As founder of Cancer Breakthroughs 2020, he has led a collaboration of biotechnology and healthcare leaders on an unprecedented mission to treat cancer with next-generation novel immunotherapies. The program aims to test multiple combinations of therapies on up to 20,000 patients in all stages of the disease who have undergone next-generation whole genome, transcriptome and quantitative proteomic analysis. It is Cancer Breakthroughs 2020’s aspiration that these findings will ultimately lead to the development of an effective vaccine-based immunotherapy to combat cancer by 2020. Earlier in his career, he performed the world’s first encapsulated human islet cell transplant in several type I diabetic patients and continued his quest to develop groundbreaking treatments for cancer. Dr. Soon-Shiong invented Abraxane, the nation’s first biologically active chemotherapy, an albumin-bound nanoparticle of paclitaxel designed to enter the tumor micro-environment, which is approved today for the treatment of breast, lung and pancreatic cancer.
Honoring Benjamin Franklin’s legacy and passion for science, Dr. Soon-Shiong, with over 175 issued patents worldwide covering a myriad of scientific and medical innovations, joins a prestigious list of past Bower Award recipients for business leadership.
“I am profoundly honored to be a Franklin Institute Award laureate,” Soon-Shiong said. “At no time in history has there been such promise for treating cancer. To win the war on cancer and to truly accelerate the development of new immunotherapy treatments, we must challenge current dogma and address the complex biology of cancer. We are excited at the interest expressed by the medical community in joining Cancer Breakthroughs 2020’s work to accelerate clinical trials and we are confident that together we can advance cancer treatments with comprehensive precision care.”
The Franklin Institute’s awards encourage pre-eminent accomplishments in science and technology on an international level since the institute was founded in 1824. Past laureates have included Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking, Jacques Cousteau and more recently Jane Goodall, Dean Kamen and Bill Gates. This year, eight individuals are being recognized for their contributions and will be honored with a Franklin Institute award at a ceremony held on April 21, 2016.
About NantWorks
NantWorks, LLC, founded by renowned physician scientist and inventor of the first human nanoparticle chemotherapeutic agent Abraxane®, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, is the umbrella organization for the following entities: NantHealth, NantMobileHealth, NantOmics, NantBio, NantCell, NantPharma, NantCapital and NantCloud. Fact-based and solution-driven, each of NantWorks’ division entities operates at the nexus of innovation and infrastructure. The core mission of NantWorks is convergence and a systems approach to human biology: to develop and deliver a diverse range of technologies that accelerates innovation, broaden the scope of scientific discovery, enhance ground-breaking research, and improve healthcare treatment for those in need. NantWorks is building an integrated fact-based, genomically and proteomically -informed, personalized approach to the delivery of care and the development of next generation diagnostics and therapeutics for life threatening diseases such as Cancer, Infectious Diseases and Alzheimer’s. For more information please visit www.nantworks.com and follow Dr. Soon-Shiong on Twitter @DrPatSoonShiong.
About Cancer Breakthroughs 2020
The Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 Program is one of the most comprehensive cancer collaborative initiatives launched to date, seeking to accelerate the potential of combination immunotherapy as the next generation standard of care in cancer patients. This initiative aims to explore a new paradigm in cancer care by initiating randomized Phase II trials in patients at all stages of disease in 20 tumor types in 20,000 patients by 2020. These findings will inform Phase III trials and the aspirational cancer initiative to develop an effective vaccine-based immunotherapy to combat cancer by 2020. For more information, visit www.cancerBreakthroughs2020.org and follow Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 on Twitter.
Media Contact
Jen Hodson
NantWorks
jhodson@nantworks.com
562-397-3639
Revised on [July 5, 2017] to reflect change of program name to Cancer Breakthroughs 2020.
