A little background on Ramaswamy:
After a 7 year career working in a hedge fund he started a company Roivant in 2014. The company would purchase patents for drugs that had failed clinical trials. The idea was the company could bring to market what others could not. New subsidiaries would be created each time. Roivant was incorporated in a tax haven and received ~$100 million in start-up capital from his old hedge fund and others. Roivant has never showed a profit in its 9 years.
Five subsidiaries have been formed so far and not one has brought a drug to market. Axovant Sciences was the big play. After an IPO the company’s market value reached ~$3 billion, although at the time it didn’t have an approved product and only had 8 employees, including his brother and mother who earned huge salaries. The company was dissolved in 2023.
Who was left holding the bag? Wasn’t
Ramaswamy who took a massive payout before things came crashing down. Institutional investors, state pension funds and others took huge losses. He was able to continue to find investors in the various companies up to 2019, selling stakes and realizing huge capital gains.
In addition he calls himself a scientist though he has never been a scientist (he does have a biology undergrad degree).
I’m not sure if it is a Ponzi scheme, a Theranos-like fraud scheme, or just a salesman who can sell crap to naive investors. I get the feeling that his interest in politics is perhaps him keeping a step ahead of the law. I have to believe that regulators are at least looking into Roivant. The huge investor losses must be getting some attention.
Sounds like he fits right in with the Republican Party.