Robert Duggan – Billionaire

Robert Duggan sold his biotech firm Pharmacyclics to AbbVie in May 2015 for $21 billion. His pretax payout was $3.5 billion in cash and stock. He has since sold the majority of his shares and invested in tech and healthcare companies. Duggan knew nothing about running a biotech company when he first gambled on the cancer drug maker back in 2004. But having lost a son to brain cancer, he was passionate about the research. Four years later, Duggan took over as CEO after the company’s board resigned en masse. By 2013 he was a billionaire thanks to the surprising success of Imbruvica, a potent, blockbuster treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Duggan’s enthusiasm for investing began four decades earlier in a corporate finance class he took at University of California at Santa Barbara. Before striking it big with Pharmacyclics, he invested in tech companies, a cookie bakery and a pioneering robotic surgery company. Duggan is apparently a top donor to the Church of Scientology, of which he is a member; he says he’s given the church nearly $360 million over his lifetime.

Source:forbes