Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiung is an amazing human being. A simple list of his accomplishments would fill this blog. Among many other things, he is leading an five-star group of companies, institutions, and scientists in an initiative called Cancer Moonshot 2020, announced in January 2016 in a White House Memorandum.

The Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program is a comprehensive cancer collaboration. It seeks 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 within the next 36 months. These findings will inform Phase III trials and the aspirational moonshot to develop an effective vaccine-based immunotherapy to combat cancer by 2020.

Simply put, the goal is to get to a point in the very near future when clinicians can manage cancer the same way they might manage any chronic disease, such as diabetes or asthma. The further goal is to eliminate toxic therapies, such as chemotherapy and radiation which all too often decimate the immune system and inflict suffering on patients. Dr. Soon-Shiong believes the Moonshot program can rally the full power of the immune system and the body’s natural killer cells to fight off the cancer the way they were designed. The result could be the patient not only survives, but thrives with cancer.

Patrick Soon-Shiong puts his money where his mouth is. And, he has plenty of money. His past entrepreneurship in cancer drug development has put him among the top 50 billionaires. His net worth is estimated at more than 13 billion dollars. I can’t say I understood every word of it, but I was inspired listening to Dr. Soon-Shiong in his interview with Dr. Eric Topol. Watch it at A Biotech Billionaire’s Cancer ‘Moonshot’.  Read more about cancer in Health Attitude.