Gates Foundation Sold Off Almost All of Their Pharma, Biotech and HealthCare Investment Stocks

When you look through the names, well they are many of the big ones that we all know. This is a very interesting and timely message to be sending out while healthcare reform is at the top of everyone’s list today. Earlier this year the foundation teamed up with Viacom to help get more educational information on television shows and ads, and were very aggressive, they are not waiting for available space, the bought it.

Gates Foundation and Viacom Team Up for “Get Schooled”

One thing I didn’t see here were any insurance companies listed, so it appears those companies were nowhere near where the foundation put it’s investments. The only health care related investment is a genetics company at present. BD

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.