The biggest healthcare fortunes in the land
Who’s the richest of them all? When Outliers dug into real-time data from Forbes on billionaires, some familiar and not-so-familiar names popped up in the healthcare field for the U.S. Here’s where they stood as of Aug. 14.
Not too surprisingly, three of the top five U.S. healthcare billionaires made their fortunes in pharmaceuticals, including the man occupying the top spot, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. His $10.1 billion bankroll places him at No. 125 on Forbes World’s Billionaires list. But the Los Angeles surgeon and entrepreneur isn’t just sitting around counting his cash. Besides leading his tech startup NantWorks, which plans to use big data to improve patient care, he recently took a job as global director for cancer services and bioinformatics at Providence Health & Services, Renton, Wash., where he aims to redefine cancer care through genomics.
The founding clan of the HCA hospital chain collectively occupies the No. 2 spot in U.S. healthcare, with a fortune estimated at $7.3 billion for Dr. Thomas Frist Jr. and family. And the Frists, who call Nashville home, have just been getting richer; they’ve seen their net worth rise 46% since September 2013, when they secured the No. 90 spot on the Forbes 400 list with a fortune then estimated at $5 billion. The Frists own 15% of HCA’s stock, which has jumped this year thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Coming in at No. 3 in U.S. healthcare riches is Dr. Phillip Frost, who earned his $3.7 billion stockpile in the pharmaceutical industry. The resident of Miami Beach, Fla., is the chairman and CEO of Opko Health and chairman of Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries. The No. 4 spot for U.S. healthcare tycoons belongs to Randal Kirk, chairman and CEO of pharma company Intrexon Corp. Kirk, who lives in Manalapan, Fla., has a net worth of $3.5 billion.
A medical-device fortune heir takes the No. 5 U.S. healthcare slot. Ronda Stryker of Portage, Mich., whose grandfather Homer Stryker founded Stryker Corp., can claim a net worth of $3.3 billion thanks to her 8% stake in the family company.
But they’re all pikers next to the world’s No. 1 healthcare billionaire, Dilip Shanghvi, of Mumbai, India. The founder of generic-drug maker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries is worth $18 billion, according to Forbes.
Forbes updates its numbers daily, so this gaggle of healthcare magnates could be even richer by the time you read this.