Nearly a year after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, the world could be nearing the beginning of the end of a pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million people. Vaccination for Covid-19 is underway in the United States and the United Kingdom, and promising antibody treatments could help doctors fight back against the disease more effectively. Tied to those breakthroughs: a host of new billionaires who have emerged in 2020, their fortunes propelled by a stock market surge as investors flocked to companies involved in the development of vaccines, treatments, medical devices and everything in between.
Altogether, Forbes found 50 new billionaires in the healthcare sector in 2020. The most notable newcomers of the year are the scientists behind the two most successful vaccines for the coronavirus — one developed by Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech, the other by Massachusetts-based Moderna — who have seen their net worths skyrocket since January: Uğur Şahin and Stéphane Bancel.
Here are the 10 most noteworthy newcomers with ties to the fight against the pandemic, followed by the 40 other healthcare billionaires who emerged in 2020:
Uğur Şahin
Net worth: $4.2 billion
Citizenship: Germany
Source of wealth: BioNTech
The Turkish-born physician cofounded BioNTech in the German city of Mainz in 2008 with his wife, Özlem Türeci, who serves as the firm’s Chief Medical Officer. He owns about 17% of the company’s shares. BioNTech’s stock has risen 160% since January on the back of its successful Covid-19 vaccine developed in partnership with Pfizer, which was declared by the U.S. FDA to be 95% effective in preventing Covid-19. The first doses were rolled out in the U.K. on December 8th and in the U.S. on December 14th, with more doses reserved for the European Union, Japan and Canada, among others. Before starting BioNTech, Şahin and Türeci founded biopharma company Ganymed Pharmaceuticals in 2001, which they sold to Japan-based Astellas Pharma for about $460 million in 2016.
Stéphane Bancel
Net worth: $4.1 billion
Citizenship: France
Source of wealth: Moderna
Bancel, a French citizen, became CEO of Massachusetts-based Moderna in 2011 after leaving his previous job as CEO of French diagnostics firm BioMérieux. He owns about 6% of Moderna, down from about 9% when he first became a billionaire in March, after selling more than a million shares as the firm’s stock surged by more than 550% since the beginning of the year. On December 18, Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine – with a reported efficacy of 95% — was the second to be approved by regulators in the U.S. after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The first doses will be administered in the U.S., which ordered 200 million doses with an option for 300 million more.
Yuan Liping
Net worth: $4.1 billion
Citizenship: Canada
Source of wealth: Pharmaceuticals
Yuan owns 24% of one of China’s leading vaccine producers, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products, after her divorce from the company’s chairman (and fellow billionaire) Du Weimin in June. The split instantly made the Shenzhen resident Canada’s richest woman. Kangtai’s stock is up 90% since the beginning of 2020. She worked at the company from 2012 to 2015 as a manager and director and has been a director at a Kangtai subsidiary, Beijing Minhai Biotechnology, since March 2017. Kangtai is the exclusive Chinese manufacturer for the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, with a deal to produce 200 million doses, but the company has a checkered history: in 2013, its hepatitis B vaccine was linked to the death of 17 infants, but a government investigation went nowhere and critics were reportedly pressured to retract negative articles. A representative for Shenzhen Kangtai did not reply to a request for comment.
Hu Kun
Net worth: $3.9 billion
Citizenship: China
Source of wealth: Medical equipment
Hu is the chairman of Contec Medical Systems, a manufacturer of medical devices based in the northeastern Chinese port city of Qinhuangdao. He took the company public on the Shenzhen stock exchange in August and owns nearly half of the shares, which are up nearly 150% since the IPO. Contec draws more than 70% of its revenue from overseas and makes a range of medical products for hospitals including nebulizers, stethoscopes and blood pressure monitors.
Carl Hansen
Net worth: $2.9 billion
Citizenship: Canada
Source of wealth: AbCellera
Hansen is the CEO and cofounder of Vancouver-based AbCellera, a biotech firm that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify the most promising antibody treatments for diseases. He founded the company in 2012. Until 2019 he also worked as a professor at the University of British Columbia, but shifted to focus full-time on AbCellera. That decision seems to have paid off, and Hansen’s 23% stake earned him a spot in the billionaire club after AbCellera’s successful listing on the Nasdaq on December 11. The U.S. government has ordered 300,000 doses of bamlanivimab, an antibody AbCellera discovered in partnership with Eli Lilly that received FDA approval as a Covid-19 treatment in November.
Timothy Springer
Net worth: $2 billion
Citizenship: United States
Source of wealth: Moderna
An immunologist and professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard University, Springer was a founding investor in Moderna in 2010 when he put about $5 million into the fledgling company. A decade later, his 3.5% stake is now worth roughly $1.6 billion. Springer is an active investor in biotech, with smaller holdings in publicly traded firms Scholar Rock and Morphic Therapeutic, which grew out of his research with postdoctoral students from his lab at Harvard. He earned his first big payday in 1999 when he sold LeukoSite, a biotech outfit he founded in 1993 and took public five years later, to Millennium Therapeutics for $635 million.
Sergio Stevanato
Net worth: $1.8 billion
Citizenship: Italy
Source of wealth: Medical packaging
Stevanato is president of Italian medical packaging firm Stevanato Group, the world’s second-largest producer of glass vials and a prominent supplier of vials for more than forty Covid-19 vaccines. Founded on the outskirts of Venice in 1949 by Sergio’s father, Giovanni, the company is now run by Sergio’s children, Franco and Marco, who serve as CEO and vice president, respectively. The $700 million (sales) company is also the world’s largest producer of insulin pens and makes machines that craft, sterilize and package billions of vials, syringes and other glass products. In June, Stevanato signed an agreement with the Gates Foundation-backed Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations to provide 100 million vials for nine different Covid-19 vaccines — since then, the firm has penned additional deals with several more vaccine manufacturers which it cannot publicly disclose.
Robert Langer
Net worth: $1.5 billion
Citizenship: United States
Source of wealth: Moderna
Known as the “Edison of Medicine” for his pioneering work in the field of biomedical engineering, Langer is a professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a founding investor in Moderna — located just across the street from his office in Cambridge — in 2010 and has never sold a share; his 3% stake is now worth about $1.5 billion. He owns smaller holdings in publicly traded biotech startups SQZ Biotechnologies and Frequency Therapeutics, both founded by postdoctoral students from his lab, and he holds more than 1,400 patents which have been licensed more than 400 times to pharmaceutical and medical companies.
Premchand Godha
Net worth: $1.4 billion
Citizenship: India
Source of wealth: Pharmaceuticals
Godha started out as a chartered accountant before entering the pharmaceutical sector in 1975, when he acquired Mumbai-based drugmaker Ipca Labs in partnership with the family of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. The firm, which manufactures generics and pharmaceutical ingredients, saw its stock price nearly double this year partly due to higher production and sales of the controversial antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which was touted as a potential cure early in the pandemic before its use was discouraged by the World Health Organization for having little to no effect in reducing mortality from Covid-19.
August Troendle
Net worth: $1.3 billion
Citizenship: United States
Source of wealth: Pharmaceutical services
Troendle is the CEO and founder of Cincinnati-based Medpace, which carries out contract work and clinical trials for pharmaceutical firms developing drugs and medical devices. Before founding Medpace in 1992 and taking it public in 2016, the University of Maryland-trained doctor worked on clinical development at Swiss pharma giant Novartis and as a medical review officer at the FDA. Medpace’s labs handle the gamut of pharmaceutical services, from running swab and antibody tests for Covid-19 for external clinics to running complex clinical trials for drugmakers working on new vaccines and treatments. Forbes estimates that Troendle, who owns about 21% of Medpace shares, is now worth about $1.3 billion, making him the latest healthcare entrepreneur to join the billionaire club in 2020.
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