When you’ve collected as much wealth as Krishnan Suthanthiran has, you can pretty much do whatever you want. Some people buy their own private island or a yacht. Suthanthiran bought a ghost town.
Since the town is in Virginia, you won't see any tumbleweeds rolling through the street, though you may run into a maintenance crew that fixes roofs and trims vegetation. At first, Suthanthiran considered turning his town into an artistic and scientific enclave. Now, he has pipe dreams—dreams of turning the ghost town of Kitsault into an energy hub.
The project will cost Suthanthiran $20 to $30 million, according to his estimates. When he's done, Kitsault will be the port from which companies can export liquefied natural gas. He's also considering exporting oil from Alberta, Canada.
Of course, while he's planning his energy venture, Suthanthiran is also building his network of medical companies under the umbrella of Best Medical International.
The medical venture is personal: When Suthanthiran was an Engineering undergraduate, he lost his father to cancer.
All of Suthanthiran's companies, collectively known as TeamBest, are expanding and diversifying. In early 2013, BMI purchased Envisioneering Medical Technologies' assets, including TargetScan Touch, which uses ultrasound to predict the location of tumors so that physicians can administer micro-invasive techniques such as brachytherapy or external beam radiation therapy (EBRT).
TeamBest has also recently received FDA approval to market Best Iodine Seeds, which are radioactive seeds used to guide surgeons who are removing cancerous breast tumors. Prior to the development of the seeds, which are the size of a grain of rice, patients had to go in two hours before surgery to have their tumor location pinned down by a radiologist.
The radiologist would then stick a wire into the breast tissue to show the surgeon where to operate.
Now, patients can go in as many as five days in advance to have a radioactive seed implanted in their breast tissue. Medical experts say surgeons can remove the cancerous tissue more accurately and also remove more of a "negative margin" of non-cancerous tissue around the tumor. The procedure prevents follow-up surgeries and metastasis.
Now, Krishnan Suthanthiran's new TeamBest company, Best Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), offers products like isotopes, cameras and pipe crawlers for the oil and natural gas industries.
It's a far stretch from selling medical devices. But you can't just leave a spare ghost town sitting around.
Edited by
Braden Becker
