A US billionaire pharmaceutical executive has donated $100m (£62.5m) to the St. John’s Health Centre in California to help it become a cutting-edge medical hub for the region, the Los Angeles Times reported this month.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and chief executive of Los Angeles-based Abraxis BioScience, made his $6bn (£3.7 bn) fortune developing cancer drugs. The donation, made with his wife, former actress Michele Chan, is the hospital’s largest donation from an individual and one of the largest received by a community hospital in California.

Soon-Shiong told the Los Angeles Times, “We have the wealthy in Beverly Hills where we can treat them at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA, and 10 miles south you have people who cannot get care and that’s unconscionable.”

Around $35m (£22m) has been spent on expanding and renovating the 380-bed hospital, and $10m (£6.2m) to attract top doctors and scientists. The remaining $55m (£34.5m) will be used to create several research centres.

Soon-Shiong, a former UCLA surgeon, sold generic drug-company APP Pharmaceuticals for $3.7 bn (£2.3 bn) in 2008. In August 2009, he pledged $1 bn (£620m) from the sale to improve healthcare and address disparities in cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles.