Los Angeles Times buyer Patrick Soon-Shiong: Who is he?

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The man who bought the Los Angeles Times in a $500 million deal is a local doctor and billionaire entrepreneur who loves basketball and has devoted himself to curing cancer in his lifetime. Here is everything you need to know about Patrick Soon-Shiong:

• Born in 1952 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa to parents who fled China during World War II, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has said he learned the value of a free press growing up in a country that during his youth still practiced apartheid.
• Soon-Shiong arrived in Los Angeles in the 1970s to begin a surgical residency at UCLA, where he became assistant professor of gastro-intestinal medicine and head of the school's pancreas-transplant program by 1983. There, Soon-Shiong created a new method for treating diabetes, according to the L.A. Times.
• Soon-Shiong bought a minority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers from Magic Johnson in 2011, and has said that he's been attending the games since the 1980s.
• The doctor made his fortune in his quest to cure cancer, creating a drug in 1991 to fight the disease that eventually led to a $9.1 billion sale of his company, Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. Soon-Shiong currently works with health startups.His company, called NantWorks, is based in Culver City and controls six California hospital, including St. Vincent Medical Center near Downtown Los Angeles, according to the L.A. Times.
• Soon-Shiong first became involved with the parent company that previously owned the L.A. Times in 2016. He invested $70.5 million in the Chicago-based Tronc, which allowed the company to resist a takeover from rival Gannett, according to the L.A. Times.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.