Later, not soon

Later, not soon Los Angeles biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, still waiting to close on his $500 million purchase of the Los Angeles Times and its San Diego little sister Union-Tribune, has been doing some downsizing elsewhere in his far-flung financial empire. Word comes via the Washington Business Journal that Soon-Shiong’s molecular diagnostics start-up NantOmics LLC is laying off 52 workers from its outpost in Rockville, Maryland. Wall Street rumors have long had it that the super-rich physician was planning to go public with NantOmics and others of his raft of pharmaceutical enterprises, but terms of a final deal, as in the case of the U-T takeover, have yet to emerge... San Diego city councilwoman Myrtle Cole, up for reelection this year, handed out 73 certificates for free eye care, thanks to a $28,106 behest from VSP Vision Care of Rancho Cordova near Sacramento, according to a March 1 disclosure filed with the city clerk’s office. The August giveaway was conducted at a “Back to School Health Fair” presented by Democratic Assemblywoman Shirley Weber “in partnership” with Democratic California Senate leader Toni Atkins and Cole.