Management Team

Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Chairman of the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, and Chairman and CEO of: the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health (the CSS Institute); the Healthcare Transformation Institute; National LambdaRail; and NantWorks LLC. A physician, surgeon and scientist, he has pioneered treatments for both diabetes and cancer, published over 100 scientific papers and holds 50 US patents. He has developed and sold two multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, American Pharma Partners (APP) and Abraxis Bioscience (ABII). Through the CSS Institute, which assumed responsibility for National LambdaRail in 2011, Dr. Soon-Shiong is working to create a national health information network for the secure sharing of biomedical information. He is supporting the development of various wireless technologies for the better management of chronic disease. Among his many positions, he is the Executive Director of the UCLA Wireless Health Institute, and a board member of the California Telehealth Network. In 2010 the Los Angeles Business Journal recognized Dr. Soon-Shiong as their Business Person of the Year, and the National Library of Medicine honored him with their Distinguished Medical Science Award.

Richard Tajak

Chief Financial Officer

Richard J. Tajak joined Nant Holdings, Inc. in July 2011 as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Tajak has over 25 years of progressive financial experience, principally within the pharmaceutical industry. He most recently served for three years as Chief Financial Officer for APP Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a $1 billion generic pharmaceutical company. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President, Finance for the $1.5 billion North American division of Astellas Pharmaceuticals, Inc. His earlier career was at Fujisawa Healthcare/USA and Lyphomed, Inc., where he had increasing levels of responsibility in the areas of accounting, finance, SEC reporting, audit, tax and corporate operations. Mr. Tajak holds a Bachelors degree in Finance and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Zhiwen Yao, MD, MPH

Senior Vice President & General Manager

Dr. Zhiwen Yao received his M.D. from Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Science, Guangzhou, China and a MPH degree in cancer epidemiology from UCLA. Dr. Yao has over 28 years in the biopharma industry, principally in the R&D and clinical development and a main focus in anti-diabetes and anti-cancer treatment.

In 1989, Dr. Yao began working with Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong which led to Dr. Yao participating in the world’s first human encapsulated islet cell transplantation in a type 1 diabetes patient as well as the development of the anti-cancer drug Abraxane®. In 2000, Dr. Yao also successfully led the clinical trials, registration and marketing of Abraxane® in China.

In 2010, Dr. Yao joined ConjuChem USA, as a General Manager. Currently, Dr. Yao is Senior Vice President at ConjuChem and lead a joint venture pharmaceutical company with Hebei Changshan Biochemical pharmaceutical to co-develop an anti-diabetes and anti-cancer drugs.

Lynnette Samuel

Vice President Manufacturing Operations

Lynnette (Lynn) Samuel has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Lynn worked for Abraxis BioScience, a parenteral drug manufacturer, for 27 years assuming roles of increasing responsibility which culminated in the leadership role of Sr. Director of the company’s Nanotechnology development Program. Lynn’s key achievement while at Abraxis was leading the activities in this capacity. Lynn was responsible for bringing a novel nanotechnology injectable drug formulation, Abraxane® for Injectable Suspension, from small scale development and manufacturing, through full commercial scale-up, including leading the CMC development activities and eventual global launch in several countries around the world. Before Abraxis BioScience, Lynn worked for Cooper BioMedical and Baxter Laboratories in the manufacturing of diagnostic products. Lynn holds a B.A. in Business Management from Concordia University Wisconsin.