2021 was a tough year even for the world’s billionaires. In Forbes' annual ranking of the world's richest people this year, there are 87 fewer than a year ago. And they’re worth a collective $12.7 trillion—$400 billion less than in 2021.
While the number of billionaires worldwide fell, 40% of those who remained got richer, Forbes reported.
America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion, including Elon Musk, who tops the world’s billionaires list for the first time with a staggering net worth of $219 billion. Forbes used stock prices and exchange rates from March 11, 2022, to calculate net worth, the publication reported.
More than 200 healthcare executives, 217 to be exact, are now in the “three-comma club,” as Forbes calls it, and are among the 2,668 billionaires on Forbes’ 2022 list. One person notably absent from the global list was Judy Faulkner, founder of medical records system company Epic. She ranked No. 147 on Forbes' 2021 ranking of the 400 richest people in America with a net worth of $6.5 billion.
Overall, Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman of the Poonawalla Group, topped the list as the wealthiest healthcare executive in the world. The Poonawalla Group includes the Serum Institute of India, India's top biotech company and the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses, according to Forbes. Poonawalla’s net worth has listed as $24.3 billion, ranking him at No. 56.
There are 32 American business leaders who made Forbes' global list. Meet 20 healthcare billionaires:
Thomas Frist Jr., M.D., and family
Frist founded the Hospital Corporation of America with his father in 1968. The sprawling publicly traded health system and operates 187 hospitals and around 2,000 sites of care in 20 states in the U.S. and U.K. Frist Jr. doesn't have an executive position at HCA, but his sons, Thomas Frist III and William Frist, are board members.
Forbes rank: 73
2022 net worth: $21.3 billion up from $15.7 billion in 2021
Carl Cook
Cook is the CEO of medical device manufacturer Cook Group, a business his parents started the business in their Bloomington, Indiana, apartment in 1963. The $2.5 billion company sold one of its subsidiaries Cook Pharmica to drug delivery technology company Catalent for $950 million in 2017.
Forbes rank: 177
2022 net worth: $11.7 billion up from $9.9 billion in 2021
Li Ge, Ph.D.
Ge co-founded and chairs WuXi AppTec, a global R&D and manufacturing services company that supports the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device industries.
Forbes rank: 235
2022 net worth: $8.8 billion down from $10.1 billion in 2021
Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D.
Transplant surgeon Patrick Soon-Shiong invented the cancer drug Abraxane. Soon-Shiong has taken four companies public, including taking cancer drug maker NantKwest public in 2015 and his biotech startup NantHealth public in 2016. He sold his drug companies Abraxis in 2010 and American Pharmaceutical Partners in 2008 for a combined $9.1 billion. He owns NantWorks, a network of health startups, ImmunityBio and has stakes in media firm Tribune Publishing and the Los Angeles Lakers. He bought the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Tribune for $500 million in June 2018.
Forbes rank: 324
2022 net worth: $7.3 billion down from $7.5 billion in 2021
Reinhold Schmieding
Reinhold Schmieding is the founder and CEO of Arthrex, an orthopedic surgical tools company. The company has developed over 13,000 products used in shoulder, hip and other orthopedic surgeries. The privately held company has estimated revenues of $2.6 billion, with Schmieding owning more than 90% of the company.
Forbes rank: 330
2022 net worth: $7.2 billion up from $6.7 billion in 2021
Ronda Stryker
Stryker is a director of medtech giant Stryker Corp., the medical equipment company founded by her grandfather, Homer Stryker. She owns about 6% of Stryker Corp. which she inherited from her parents. The company sold $14.4 billion worth of medical equipment in 2020. Earlier this year, Stryker inked a $3 billion deal to dramatically reshape its digital patient outreach efforts with the acquisition of Vocera Communications.
Forbes rank: 363
2022 net worth: $6.8 billion up from $6.5 billion in 2021
John Brown
Brown ran Stryker Corp. for 32 years before retiring as chairman in 2009. The company’s revenues climbed from $17 million to $6.7 billion under Brown's leadership, according to Forbes. He led the IPO of Stryker in 1979. He is chairman emeritus of Stryker's board and owns slightly more than 5% of the company.
Forbes rank: 490
2022 net worth: $5.4 billion up from $5.2 billion in 2021
Stewart Rahr
Rahr expanded Kinray, a pharmaceutical distributor his father founded in 1944, and sold it to Cardinal Health in 2010 for $1.3 billion in cash. Rahr is known for his extravagant lifestyle and he has a sizable art collection that includes works by Picasso, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Alexander Calder, according to Forbes. Rahr has donated over $25 million to Make-A-Wish, a nationwide nonprofit that grants the wishes of critically ill children.
Forbes rank: 1238
2022 net worth: $2.5 billion up from $2.3 billion in 2021
Jeff Tangney
Tangney, 49, co-founded Doximity, known as a "LinkedIn for doctors," in 2010. He owns a 32.9% stake in the $207 million (2021 revenue) social media network. The claims around 80% of U.S. doctors, or about 1.9 million physicians, use Doximity for professional networking. Tangney's first company, mobile medical reference app Epocrates, went public in 2011 and was later sold to Athenahealth for $293 million.
Forbes rank: 1292
2022 net worth: $2.4 billion (Tangney is new to the list)
Philip Frost
Frost, 85, is a longtime healthcare investor, inventor and founder and now runs diagnostic maker Opko Health. Frost joined Key Pharmaceuticals in 1972, reformulated its asthma drug and sold the company in 1986 for $836 million. He also founded Ivax, a generic drug maker, in 1987. He sold it to Teva Pharmaceuticals for $7.6 billion in 2005. In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused him of participating in a "pump-and-dump" scheme that generated over $27 million from unlawful stock sales. Frost denied the allegations in a personal statement. He settled with the SEC in 2018 without admitting or denying the allegations.
Forbes rank: 1392
2022 net worth: $2.2 billion down from $2.5 billion in 2021
Alice Schwartz
With $720 in savings, Schwartz and her husband David launched Bio-Rad Laboratories in a Berkeley Quonset hut in 1952, according to Forbes. Bio-Rad now sells 10,000 life science research and clinical diagnostics products and had 2019 revenues of $2.3 billion. Schwartz remains on the board of Bio-Rad and owns a 14% stake; her son Norman is chairman and CEO.
Forbes rank: 1445
2022 net worth: $2.1 billion down from $2.4 billion in 2021
Robert Duggan
A serial entrepreneur, Duggan led the 2015 sale of biotech firm Pharmacyclics to AbbVie for $21 billion in cash and stock. The success of Pharmacyclics' cancer drug Imbruvica made him a billionaire in 2013, Forbes reports. Duggan, whose son died from brain cancer, became passionate about Pharmacyclic's cancer fighting drugs and first invested in 2004. In 2020, Duggan was appointed CEO and executive chairman of Summit Therapeutics, a small British biotechnology company. He also sits on the board of Pulse Biosciences, of which he is the largest individual shareholder.
Forbes rank: 1513
2022 net worth: $2 billion up from $1.8 billion in 2021
Gary Michelson, M.D.
A retired orthopedic and spinal surgeon, Michelson, 73, who holds over 340 U.S. patents for orthopedic and spinal surgery instruments. He became a billionaire in 2005 when he reached a $1.35 billion settlement with medical device giant Medtronic after years of litigation.
Forbes rank: 1645
2022 net worth: $1.8 billion up from $1.7 billion in 2021
Noubar Afeyan
Afeyan, 59, is the founder and CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts, life sciences innovation firm Flagship Pioneering. He’s also the chairman and co-founder of biotech firm Moderna, known for its COVID-19 vaccine which was authorized by the U.S. FDA in December 2020. Afeyan has helped start more than 70 public and private healthcare and life sciences companies over the course of his career. Beyond his stake in Moderna, he also owns shares in more than a dozen publicly traded biotech companies in the U.S.
Forbes rank: 1729
2022 net worth: $1.7 billion down from $1.9 billion in 2021
Keith Dunleavy, M.D., and family
Dunleavy founded cloud-based healthcare data analytics company Inovalon. He, a board-certified internal medicine physician, came up with the idea for Inovalon in 1998 while doing his medical residency at Johns Hopkins University. Dunleavy has a 64% stake in Inovalon, which had 2020 revenues of $667.5 million.
Forbes rank: 1729
2022 net worth: $1.7 billion up from $1.4 billion in 2021
Randal J. Kirk
Kirk, 68, is a former practicing attorney and chairman of venture capital and private equity firm Third Security LLC. In January 2020, he stepped down as CEO of biotech firm Precigen (formerly Intrexon), but was appointed executive chairman. He achieved his first entrepreneurial success with an injectable drug and vaccine distributor, which he eventually sold for $145 million. His investments have made waves for innovative products, like apples that never brown and a genetically modified species of salmon.
Forbes rank: 1818
2022 net worth: $1.6 billion down from $2.2 billion in 2021
Robert Langer
A scientist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Langer leads the eponymous Langer Lab. He also was a founder of biotech firm Moderna; he owns a 3% stake in the company and has never sold a share. He also owns shares in SQZ Biotechnologies, Seer and Sigilon Therapeutics, which were founded by him and postdoc students from his lab. Langer holds more than 1,400 patents and patent applications, which have been licensed more than 400 times to biotech and pharma companies.
Forbes rank: 1818
2022 net worth: $1.6 billion (no change)
Alan Miller and family
Miller founded Universal Health Services, a chain of hospitals and other health providers, in 1979. The company has more than 400 facilities across the U.S. and the U.K. and brings in $11 billion in annual revenue. In January 2021, Miller stepped down as CEO and his son Marc Miller now runs the company. Miller remains the executive chairman of UHS' board of directors.
Forbes rank: 1929
2022 net worth: $1.5 billion up from $1.3 billion in 2021
George Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D.
Yancopoulos, 62, is the chief scientific officer of biotech firm Regeneron. The company was co-founded by now-billionaire Leonard Schleifer in 1988. Yancopoulos joined the next year and eventually led the invention of seven approved drugs and a technology platform designed to invent more. He owns about 2% of Regeneron stock.
Forbes rank: 2076
2022 net worth: $1.4 billion up from $1.1 billion in 2021
Forrest Preston
Preston founded Life Care Centers of America in 1970 and has since made a fortune with facilities that house and care for the elderly. The private firm raked in $2.7 billion in sales in 2020 from nursing homes, assisted living facilities and retirement living communities in 28 states. Preston is the CEO and sole owner of the company, which is based in Cleveland, Tennessee. In February 2020, an LCCA facility in Seattle became the epicenter of Washington's COVID-19 outbreak as nursing homes across the country struggled.
Forbes rank: 2190
Net worth 2022: $1.3 billion up from $1.1 billion in 2021