How the 8 biggest U.S. pharmas enriched their shareholders in 2019
by Kyle Blankenship | Jan 20, 2020 12:00pm
With tens of billions of dollars in sales pumping into their coffers each year, the world's largest publicly traded pharmaceutical companies can be extremely profitable investments for shareholders.
But impressive profits––and the welcome return on investment that comes with them––don't always translate into more innovation or long-term value. Megapharmas spend a lot of money each year investing in short-term returns for their shareholders—including executives—instead of investing more of those profits into R&D, critics note.
For some, the U.S. corporate tradition of enriching shareholders through stock repurchases––or buybacks––and dividends is a short-term solution to a long-term problem: How can publicly traded companies best return value for investors?
In pharma, where companies split profit between their shareholders and potentially game-changing (and lifesaving) therapies, that short-term vision is even more problematic, said Ovid Therapeutics CEO Jeremy Levin, D.Phil.
https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/how-8-biggest-u-s-pharmas-have-enriched-shareholders-2019
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