If you missed NewsNation’s “Killing Cancer: The Power Within” special report, you can watch it here.
(NewsNation) — Human ingenuity has resulted in great technological and medical advances, from smartphones and space travel to robotic surgeries and MRIs, and yet, a cure for cancer has remained elusive.
The National Cancer Institute estimates that more than 600,000 Americans will succumb to cancer in 2025 alone.
One man, however, believes he has found the key to killing cancer.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is a surgeon by trade, but he’s more than a doctor. He’s a radical thinker who has become a multi-billionaire after taking four companies public. It’s from his clinic in El Segundo, California, where he’s plotting to defeat cancer for good.
Soon-Shiong believes he’s found the answer in his drug, Anktiva, a cancer treatment that forgoes chemotherapy and instead harnesses the body’s immune system to destroy cancer tumors. While it’s been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of one type of bladder cancer, it continues to face regulatory hurdles that prevent the drug’s expanded access.
Soon-Shiong said nearly 1,000 patients have been treated successfully with Anktiva, many after standard treatments failed. He reports patients with bladder cancer alive 10 years later, metastatic pancreatic cancer patients surviving six years and complete remissions across multiple cancer types.
Two of his patients talked with NewsNation for “Killing Cancer: The Power Within,” an hourlong special about Anktiva and Soon-Shiong’s efforts.
Jim Johnson
“I was very active (before his cancer diagnosis),” New York resident Jim Johnson told NewsNation. “I led a great existence.”
During a regular check-up in 2015, then-57-year-old Johnson learned that though he was active, he was not healthy.
“It turned out that I had head and neck cancer,” he said. “I had a tumor on my tonsil. When I had to tell my wife that I had cancer, that was really, really tough because I knew what I was going to put her through.”
After countless rounds of traditional therapy and enrolling in clinical trials to treat his HPV-related throat cancer, Johnson said his last hope was getting into one of Soon-Shiong’s trials.
He’s been going to Soon-Shiong’s El Segundo clinic for 18 months. He said the results are nothing short of miraculous.
“Liver enzymes are down. Lymphocytes are up. White blood count is back to normal,” said Johnson. “It’s been six months since my last MRI; I have no new tumors. I got nothing. The man (Soon-Shiong) saved my life.”
Billy Falcon
Nashville singer-songwriter Billy Falcon was also diagnosed with an HPV-related throat cancer.
“I had cancer on my tonsil, and it then made it out with showing on my neck,” Falcon said.
When he was told he’d lose the ability to speak or sing, he refused traditional treatments. Falcon was also admitted for the Anktiva trial.
He had a different kind of tumor than Johnson, but the same kind of result.
“In three weeks, this was gone,” he said. “I’m not a scientist at all, but every time they take my blood, they say, ‘Your blood is perfect.’”