St. John's Health Center in Los Angeles Receives $65 Million Gift
St. John's Health Center in Los Angeles Receives $65 Million Gift
Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and CEO of Abraxis BioScience, and his wife, Michelle Chan, have pledged $65 million to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, the Los Angeles Times reports. The gift comes on top of the $35 million the couple donated to the hospital two years ago.
To date, some $35 million of the $100 million has been spent to expand and renovate the 380-bed hospital, while $10 million has gone to recruit doctors and scientists. The remaining $55 million will be used to create several research centers and fund future projects. Soon-Shiong told the Times that, among other things, the gift will be used to help link doctors and patients to hundreds of other hospitals as well as researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.
A former UCLA surgeon who made his fortune developing cancer drugs, Soon-Shiong moved into the ranks of the mega-wealthy last year when he sold generic drug-maker APP Pharmaceuticals for $3.7 billion. He has since pledged $1 billion from the sale to improve health care and address healthcare disparities in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles.
"We have the wealthy in Beverly Hills where we can treat them at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA, [but] ten miles south you have people who cannot get care, and that's unconscionable," said Soon-Shiong, who was raised under apartheid in South Africa. "These are the things that make it critical for me to get involved. The underserved deserve care."
Hennessy-Fiske, Molly.
“Pharmaceutical Executive Donates $100 Million to St. John's Health Center.”
Los Angeles Times
10/01/09.
Primary Subject: Health
Secondary Subject(s): Medical Research
Location(s): California, Santa Monica
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