Another Theranos on boil? Patrick Soon-Shiong’s companies and the NantHealth Foundation (update)

April 11, 2017 | by

Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong‘s drive to take down cancer through vaccines, genomics, software, and related health tech is one of the key missions of his NantHealth group and also the Foundation. Both fund research efforts such as Cancer Breakthroughs 2020, which is supported by former Vice President Joseph Biden. Reportedly, the well-wired Dr Soon-Shiong wooed President Trump for a role in his new Administration, one that has not materialized. In February, we noted his appearance at HIMSS17 promoting his cancer vaccine which was approved by FDA to advance to later clinical trials, and also unveiled Nant AI and the Nant Cloud–but also an article published in Stat that gazed through the NantHealth veil and found little to compliment, including the trademark infringement suit brought by the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas.

Apparent self-dealing among various NantHealth companies and investors, which started to be unwrapped in Stat, is now further investigated in a long POLITICO article. The report looks at transactions among the Chan Soon-Shiong NantHealth Foundation, the NantHealth companies, and other non-profits controlled by Dr Soon-Shiong, then at charitable donations to universities and hospitals that in turn support his research and other companies. Three citations in the article will attract the Reader’s notice (Editor’s emphasis):

Of the nearly $59.6 million in foundation expenditures between its founding in 2010 and 2015, the most recent year for which records are available, over 70 percent have gone to Soon-Shiong-affiliated not-for-profits and for-profits, along with entities that do business with his for-profit firms.

The foundation contributed $3 million out of a total of $12 million donated by Soon-Shiong-controlled entities to a University of Utah program to map the genomes of 1,000 state residents. University officials say they let Soon-Shiong’s entities write the grant specifications. The specifications gave a major advantage to his for-profit firms, which got the $10 million gene-mapping contract.

Soon-Shiong-controlled charities gave a total of $15 million — including $10 million from the NantHealth Foundation — to a fund that benefited Phoenix Children’s Hospital, which concluded a pair of deals with Soon-Shiong’s for-profit companies for many millions of dollars.

It’s dizzying, certainly by design. If true, it appears that Dr Soon-Shiong’s favorite charities happen to be his own businesses, which raise all sorts of ethical and legal questions. The investigation also calls into question not only these dealings but also the Foundation’s tax-exempt and additional special status as a medical research organization. Will the IRS come calling? How Washington’s favorite cancer fighter helps himself    Also Healthcare IT News, which delightfully called them ‘funding indiscretions’.

Updated. A canary in the coal mine is the NantHealth (NASDAQ: NH) share price, which has crashed from a 52-week high of $21 to a current value of $4.32. To clarify, it has been in precipitous decline since January, and not just from this report. There is trouble in Culver City. A quick look over at Yahoo!Finance news items now reveal a brace of law firms offering class action lawsuits to shareholders who believe they have suffered losses due to “materially false and misleading statements”, now updated for the above information.

#HIMSS17 roundup: machine learning, Proteus, Soon-Shiong/NantWorks’ cancer vax, Uniphy Health, more

February 28, 2017 | by

HIMSS17 is over for another year, but there is plenty of related reading left for anyone who is not still recovering from sensory overload. There wasn’t big news made, other than Speaker John Boehner trying to have it both ways about what the House needs to do about replacing the failing ACA a/k/a Obamacare. Here’s our serving:

  • If you are interested in the diffusion of workflow technologies into healthcare, including machine learning and AI, there’s a long-form three-part series in Healthcare IT News that this Editor noted has suddenly become a little difficult to find–but we did. The articles also helpfully list vendors that list certain areas of expertise in their exhibitor keywords.
  • Mobihealthnews produced a two-page wrap up that links to various MHN articles where applicable. Of interest:
    • a wound measurement app that Intermountain Healthcare developed with Johns Hopkins spinoff Tissue Analytics
    • Children’s Health of Dallas Texas is using the Proteus Health ingestible med sensor with a group of teenaged organ post-transplant patients to improve med compliance
    • the Medisafe med management app has a new feature that alerts users to drug, food and alcohol interactions with their regimen, which is to this writer’s knowledge the first-ever med app to do this
    • Info security spending is rising, according to the Thales Data Threat Report. This year, 81 percent of U.S. healthcare organizations and 76 percent of global healthcare organizations will increase information security spending.
  • Healthcare and sports mogul Patrick Soon-Shiong presented on NantHealth‘s progress on a cancer vaccine that became a significant part of the former VP Joe Biden’s initiative, Cancer Breakthroughs 2020. Dr Soon-Shiong stated that the FDA has given approval to advance the vaccine into later clinical trials, and also unveiled Nant AI, an augmented intelligence platform to high-speed process genome activity of cancer tumors and the Nant Cloud, a cloud server which can generate bioinformatic data at 26 seconds per patient. This is in addition to the NantHealth GPS Cancer diagnostic tool used to isolate new mutations in a given tumor. HealthcareITNews MedCityNews takes a dimmer view, noting two recent cancer vaccine failures. Dimmer still is Stat’s takedown of Dr Soon-Shiong, which reportedly was the talk of HIMSS.
  • Leading up to HIMSS, Newark’s own Uniphy Health announced UH4, the latest generation of its enterprise-wide communications and clinical collaboration platform for hospitals and clinics to facilitate the ‘real-time health system’. Release

Not enough? DestinationHIMSS, produced by Healthcare IT News/HIMSS Media, has its usual potpourri of official reporting here.