Gates Foundation Sells Off Most Health-Care, Pharmaceutical Holdings

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

This is awesome. Just saw this over at WallStreet Journal.
Gate LIQUIDATING shares.

Gates Foundation Sells Off Most Health-Care, Pharmaceutical Holdings
By JESSICA HODGSON
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private philanthropy fund, sold off almost all of its pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care investments in the quarter ended June 30, according to a regulatory filing published Friday.

The Seattle-based charity endowment, set up by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife, sold its total holding of 2.5 million shares in health-care giant Johnson & Johnson in the quarter, according to the filing.

The foundation also sold millions of shares in major drug makers, including 14.9 million shares in Schering-Plough Corp., almost 1 million shares in Eli Lilly & Co., 8.1 million shares in Merck & Co. and 3.7 million shares in Wyeth, over the same time period. The foundation no longer holds shares in any of those companies.

Among the other health and life sciences-related investments the foundation liquidated are Allos Therapeutics Inc., InterMune Inc., Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

...more
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029373754433433.html

[stuball111]

1. He must know something's up.

Either that or it's he's going broke.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Its not the latter

Have to wonder what kind of reaction there will be next week unless it is announced why they did that.

[stuball111]

3. Maybe that's the way to kill the private industry...

Everybody sell their shares and bale.

[paulsby]

12. JNJ is a great company fwiw

they make a lot of medical industry staples. another one is becton dickinson.

[Lena inRI]

4. Or both Bill and Melinda are making a moral statement. . .

. . .enough already with putting profits before people's health resources.

Like many of us, they feel the utter disgust at how the greedy health insurance lizards stop at nothing to bring down meaningful health care reform.

Unfortunately, most of us are impotent, especially as our federal reps and Obama cave in to the faux protesters.

But the Gates have the power! God bless them for making this moral statement. . .

"take your filthy shares and shove them up your corporate asses"!

http://www.washblade.com/2006/7-28/news/healthnews/HIBS-Gates,%20Bill%20and12B682.jpg







:yourock: :grouphug: :yourock: :grouphug: :yourock:

[Donnachaidh]

9. oh puhlleeze!!!

The jerk who made his money monopolizing the personal computer -- yeah, he's SUCH a philanthropist :sarcasm:

He doesn't want to get caught on any ads as someone who has probably greatly benefited from all those stocks held for years.

[paulsby]

11. he is

fwiw, i will admit i have met him, and i have good friends who have worked for or who work for the gates foundation.

fwiw, i own JNJ as well.

regardless, he IS a philanthropist. he has donated a lot of money to some excellent causes. the library program for instance.

and of course the cynical/hate the rich crowd will damn rich people either way. if they give money to charity, it's just a ploy for publicity and tax advantages, and if they don't, it's cause they are selfish.

[Imperfect World]

5. Insurance industries vs pharmaceutical industries

I support H.R. 676, the single payer bill that's been in the U.S. House for the past few years. It doesn't bother me if the insurance companies go away.

The pharmaceutical companies are a completely different issue. They invent new drugs that help people to live longer, reduce their pain and suffering, and save money (because drugs for illnesses such as AIDS and schizophrenia are far cheaper than the hospitalization that they replace).

Back in the early 1980s, if you had AIDS, you would lie in the hospital, suffering terribly, until you died. And the cost of that hospitalization was $100,000 a year. Today with the new AIDS drugs, you will live much longer. Your pain and suffering will be much less. You can go to work, school, skydiving, etc. And the cost of the AIDS drugs is only $20,000 a year. Because of the drug companies, people with AIDS live longer, have less pain and suffering, and save money.

Hospitalizing someone with schizophrenia can cost $80,000 a year. But the new drugs for this illness (which often makes hospitalization unnecessary) cost only $10,000. More importantly, the patient has a much better quality of life because of the drugs.

Bash insurance companies all you want, and I'll agree with you. But pharmaceutical companies? No way. Unlike insurance companies, which don't provide health care, drug companies do provide health care - and they do an excellent job of it.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. Manufacturers make things. But the new discoveries are mostly government money.

In fact the Drug companies spend almost double on advertising what they do on R&D

And we are being gouged by the drug makers. WE pay far more for the same drugs than any country in the world.

We buy drugs sometimes at 100 times the cost that they are sold in other countries.

So while I agree with you that drug companies actually do something as compared to insurance companies who do nothing, I think we are being ripped of by big pharma and we need to make that stop.


I support HR676 as well! Welcome to DU and I hope to see you around.

[newfie11]

6. thats encouraging n/t

[Why Syzygy]

7. kick

[tridim]

10. Great news all around. Watch the market tomorrow.