Thursday, September 29, 2011

Soon-Shiong Endows Chair At USC Viterbi

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire founder of Abraxis Bioscience, has made a "multi-million" dollar donation to the University of Southern California, to endow a new chair at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. According to USC, the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, funded by Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele B. Chan, will fund a professor at the intersection of engineering and medicine, specifically focused on computer science, mobile vision, or robotics. Exact amount of the endowment was not announced. Soon-Shiong has been busy redeploying his fortune in local startups and other causes in the last year--just in the last few months, he said he had started an incubator, Nantworks, here in Los Angeles aimed at bringing the digital revolution to healthcare, education, science, and the justice system; funded biotechnology firm ConjuChem and relocated its headquarters to LA; invested in healthcare technology firm Net.Orange; and at the beginning of the year personally funded massively multiplayer game firm Fourth Wall Studios in Culver City.

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