Faceless private equities and hedge funds control the firms essential to our health and survival.
How often do you hear about Dodge & Cox, SSgA Funds Management, BlackRock, Mawer Investment or The Vanguard Group? Well, if you recently popped a Tylenol for a headache, took a Lantus insulin shot or got your kid a flu shot at the local clinic - then you’ve probably come across these investment funds as they own the pharmaceutical firms that made those drugs.

In the last two decades, private equities and investment management companies — known as institutional investors — have mopped up the majority shareholding in the world’s largest medicine-makers.

Many of these investors simultaneously hold stakes in more than one large pharmaceutical company and their generic counterparts, something known as “common ownership”. This has raised concern that it undermines competition and as a result consumers end up paying more.

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov