Patrick Soon-Shiong, CEO of Abraxis Health, to Keynote and Receive ABL's Leadership Award

Nine Innovative Health Companies are Finalists for ABBY Awards to be presented at ABL's 11^th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, October 28

Orange, CA — August 24, 2009 — Patrick Soon-Shiong, Chairman and CEO of Abraxis Health, will receive the Adaptive Business Leaders Organization's 2009 “Leadership in Innovation” Award and Keynote at ABL's 11th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event on October 28, in Newport Beach. Additionally, nine Finalists will vie to win the three prestigious ABBY Awards, which honor innovative approaches and technologies that reduce the cost of providing quality healthcare.

Currently, Patrick Soon-Shiong leads Abraxis Health, which is forging a new paradigm for the delivery of healthcare, requiring a novel global infrastructure, integrating bioinformatics, discovery, molecular medicine and clinical development. Under this model, Abraxis Health will develop, test and validate diagnostics and drugs to target pre-selected patients based on molecular profiles that predict drug response to particular therapeutics, enabling personalized medicine. 

A noted researcher, physician and surgeon, Patrick is a co-inventor of 50+ issued U.S. patents, has published 100+ scientific papers, and founded two publicly traded pharmaceutical companies, American Pharma Partners and Abraxis Bioscience - a fully integrated global biotech company dedicated to the discovery, development and delivery of next-generation therapeutics and core technologies that offer patients safer and more effective treatments for cancer and other critical illnesses. Pat was Chairman and CEO of Abraxis Bioscience until April 2009. There, he developed and co-invented the nanoparticle delivery technology known as Abraxane, used in the treatment of advanced metastatic breast cancer. Abraxane, launched in 2005, is now approved in 36 countries, and is being developed for lung, ovarian, prostate, melanoma, head and neck cancers. 

In 2008, Abraxis Bioscience sold its APP Pharmaceuticals division to Fresenius SE for approximately $3.7 billion. In addition to launching  Abraxis Health in 2009, earlier this year he formed the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, through which he and his family are focusing on charitable endeavors that will improve healthcare in America and the welfare of its patients, and The National Coalition of Health Integration (NCHI).  NCHI’s vision is to create a robust, accessible, integrated health information platform that supports the comprehensive management and exchange of biomedical data on a national scale.

"We are honored to have Patrick Soon-Shiong at the helm of this year’s Innovations Event. Patrick truly is one of the great American success stories, arriving here as an immigrant, and creating multiple successful companies along the way.  We’re just so pleased that his blockbuster innovations are in medicine, noted Mimi Grant, ABL's president. “This year’s nine ABBY Award Finalists also represent outstanding new ways to improve quality healthcare, while lowering the cost to deliver it.” 

The nine ABBY Award Finalists were selected by 20 ABL-Member “Champions” from a field of 37 Semi-Finalists, and over 50 nominees. The Finalists were selected for best meeting the criteria of having an innovative approach to the delivery of healthcare, medical/biotechnology, or healthcare information/telecommunications technology that is approved for use in the U.S. marketplace, with clinical and financial metrics that prove their technology or approach reduces the cost of providing quality healthcare. The ABBY Award winners will be selected via secret ballot by ABL Members, after viewing presentations from each Finalist company. The Awards will be announced and presented at the Innovations in Healthcare Awards Event on October 28^th, which will be open to ABL Members, as well as non-Member senior executives. 

The ABBY Award Finalists, divided into three categories, are:

Finalists in the Innovative Approaches to the Delivery of Healthcare category:

Santa Monica, CA’s Dakim, Inc., whose BrainFitness products provide a customized, rigorous brain workout in six cognitive domains, designed and engineered so that most seniors – even those with dementia – can successfully use the system on their own.

Boulder Creek, CA’s HeartMath, whose stress reduction and performance-enhancing programs are based on practical techniques, innovative feedback technology and robust scientific research, which has verified measurable, sustainable results,  which also bring immediate stress relief.

Oakland, CA’s Kaiser Permanente’s Online Services, whose My Health Manager, which integrates with Kaiser’s EHR, provides patients email communication with their doctors, online appointment scheduling, prescription refills, lab result access, immunization records, and more.  

Finalists in the Innovations in Healthcare Information and Telecommunications Technology category:

San Mateo, CA’s Epocrates, whose mobile and online medical reference software provides physicians – and now consumers - access to critical clinical information on their PDAs and smartphones, without having to leave a patient’s bedside.

Scottsdale, AZ’s MedApps, Inc., whose Wireless Health Monitoring System enables people with chronic diseases to automatically transfer their bio-metric readings from their MedApps HealthPAL™ directly to a central server for physician review and records storage.

Los Angeles, CA’s MMR Information Systems, Inc., whose MyMedicalRecords.com is the first web-based Personal Health Record that is 100% patient-centric and designed to help health consumers manage personal health information from any provider they are seeing.

Finalists in the Innovations in Medical/Biotechnology category:

Union City, CA’s Abaxis, Inc., whose point-of-care blood chemistry analyzer is the only such product to achieve CLIA status for complex, comprehensive chemistry. Abaxis’ tests enable clinicians to quickly and easily receive complete diagnostics for nearly any internal organ function.

San Diego, CA’s Biomatrica Inc., whose products for the storage of biological samples at room temperature offer a more than 15-fold cost savings over conventional freezer storage, as well as over 100-fold higher sample recovery than a competitive paper-based storage solution.

Pasadena, CA’s Osmetech Molecular Diagnostics, whose eSensor® XT-8 System is a test and instrument for detecting multiple genetic variations that identify patients at risk for warfarin sensitivity, the most widely-used anticoagulant to prevent blood clots, heart attacks, and stroke.

Now in its 11^th year, ABL’s Innovations in Healthcare^SM  Awards have recognized organizations which have demonstrated transformative advances in medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics, information technology and approaches to providing care and coverage, decreasing the numbers of uninsured, and engaging healthcare consumers more actively in their care and health status, all of which reduces the cost of providing quality healthcare.  Details about the Innovations in Healthcare^SM  Awards Event can be found at www.abl.org/iih2009.htm.

About the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization
ABL supports the needs of its Member CEOs by providing a place for top-level executives to draw on the experience, knowledge and skill sets of their peers in a vertical industry, personal advisory board – “multi-coach approach” – setting.

The core component of the CEO Membership experience is the group Round Table meeting. Members meet once a month for a half-day with a group of peer CEOs, Presidents, COOs and Division General Managers from non-competing companies, all from the same industry (healthcare, technology or medical device), in a trusted and confidential board room-like setting, which allows ABL Members to tackle topics and enhance their decision making and business performance. Topics include: latest developments in and implications of national and regional healthcare reform, developing and honing new business strategies and best practices, developing new lines of business and an effective board of directors, as well as understanding trends in new markets, mergers and acquisitions, compensation, and other “hot” topics brought to the Round Tables by the Members themselves.

ABL Members also gather several times a year at workshops and conferences to exchange ideas and connect with other chief executives beyond their own CEO peer groups. In effect, ABL Members serve as one another’s business coaches within the Round Tables and are encouraged to connect and leverage their co-Member peers’ particular skills and expertise for additional leadership development, one-on-one, outside of their monthly group meeting. In addition, each Round Table’s Facilitator also serves as an objective business advisor, offering executive and industry insights and advice.

ABL's Chief Executive Leadership Development Round Table program is currently offered in California's Greater Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco and Santa Clara County areas. More information about the ABL Organization can be found at http://www.abl.org.