written by Bradley J. Fikes, San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego County’s population of 3.3 million makes it home to roughly one in every 2,100 people on the planet, less than 0.05 percent of the total. But San Diegans make up 5 of the top 100 biotech visionaries worldwide, according to a new report from Scientific American’s Worldview.
And if one adds in those with strong ties to San Diego, the number is even greater.
San Diegans on the list are:
–Craig Venter, the genomics pioneer, who has numerous ventures. Venter is in the Top 10.
–Dr. Eric Topol, the Scripps Health cardiologist/geneticist
–Stanley T. Crooke, CEO of Isis Pharmaceuticals
–Jay Flatley, CEO of Illumina
–Robert Hariri, Celgene founder now at Venter’s Human Longevity
Others who don’t live in San Diego but have strong connections include:
Sangeeta Bhatia, a biomedical engineer formerly on the UC San Diego faculty
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biomedical entrepreneur and billionaire physician whose umbrella company Nantworks, has established partnerships with San Diego’s Sorrento Therapeutics.
George Uy, Sorrento’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, led the commercial launch of Abraxane, a form of the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel that Soon-Shiong created when he headed Abraxis Bioscience.
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