COVID billionaire fortunes fade as vaccines rolled out

IN THE HEALTH-CARE industry, the coronavirus pandemic led to big fortunes, fast. Now some of them are evaporating just as quickly.

Take Seegene, Inc., a maker of COVID-19 test kits, and Alteogen, Inc., a biotech with subcutaneousinjection technology. Their founders became billionaires as the shares surged last year. Fast forward a few months to the vaccine rollout, and they’ve lost their title after both stocks sank more than 41%, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

It’s a similar story for glove makers in Malaysia, which counted at least five industry billionaires by August as the worsening health crisis increased demand for the protective gear. Despite a brief rebound amid last month’s frenzy in retail trading, their shares are down at least 40% since hitting highs, wiping more than $9 billion from their founders’ net worths.

While the billionaires created by the Pfizer, Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna, Inc. vaccines have maintained much of their wealth, many others have seen a falling off. The moves show how fleeting fortunes can be with a market so wild that some stocks have had days with fluctuations of more than 20%. Some of the founders took advantage of the volatility to book profits, just as others increased their control by buying more shares as prices fell.

“It doesn’t look like fortunes made from a sudden boom in demand — such as for test kits or biotech — would continue to grow once things get more stable,” said Park Ju-gun, president of Seoul-based corporate watchdog CEOScore. He expects platform-based services that thrived with the pandemic will lead to further wealth creation.

The emergence of COVID-19 and its rapid spread across the globe led to an immediate need for test kits, protective gear and treatments for the disease. Companies such as Seegene, Alteogen and Top Glove Corp. stepped up.

Seegene developed a coronavirus test kit in late January of last year. Alteogen licensed its injection technology that enabled patients to self-administer medications. The world’s biggest maker of rubber gloves beefed up production and continues to do so — it’s aiming to produce 110 billion pieces of the protective gear annually by

December, up from 91 billion now.