Management Team
Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD
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
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.
Jonathan Booth
Jonathan Booth has over 30 years of corporate experience, of which, 15 years are in the healthcare industry. Specifically, he has worked in the pharmaceutical, medical device, food, and automotive industries. Most notably, Jonathan worked at Abraxis Bioscience as the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. Before Abraxis, he held senior positions at Fresenius Kabi AG (APP Pharmaceuticals Division), Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Pfizer Corporation (G.D. Searle), and Monsanto Corporation where his experiences included strategic planning, business development, operations management, and finance. Outside of the healthcare industry, he has held managerial positions related to activity-based management at Navistar International Transportation Corporation and Kraft Foods. Jonathan has also spent 16 years at General Motors Corporation as an industry analyst and in numerous engineering posts. Jonathan holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from General Motors Institute, a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.
Lynnette Samuel
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.
Karen Thibaudeau
Karen Thibaudeau has 15 years’ work experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. She started with RedCell (Conjuchem’s predecessor) in Nantes for one year before joining Conjuchem in July 1997 when RedCell was relocated in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Thibaudeau continued as research scientist and set up the biology laboratory wherein she developed several key assays and protocols for various DAC and PC-DAC candidates. She was subsequently promoted to head of Pharmacology in 2000, where she evaluated the pharmacodynamic and the pharmacokinetic of various drug candidates in multiple therapeutic areas including endocrinology (diabetes, growth, obesity), HIV, analgesia, angiogenesis, oncology, hypertension and coagulation. This was followed by a promotion to Senior Director of Research in 2008 where she implemented research programs and early development projects, specifically for CJC-1134-PC, PC-Insulin and DAC-fusion inhibitor programs. Since 2011, she has been with ConjuChem LLC where she currently holds the position of Senior Director of Research and Development. Karen holds a doctorate in immunology from the ‘Faculté de Médecine-Pharmacie’ of the University of Nantes (1996, France) and has co-authored several peer reviewed publications/patents.