An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back

by Elisabeth Rosenthal

The mind-set and mission of many disease foundations underwent a sea change in 2014, when the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) received a $3.3 billion windfall as the result of its decision to invest over the years in a small Massachusetts biotech firm. A total of $150 million invested in Vertex Pharmaceuticals ultimately helped produce Kalydeco, the first blockbuster drug against cystic fibrosis (CF), which was approved by the FDA in 2012. Two years later, the foundation sold its rights to drug royalties to a venture capital firm and received over $3 billion in an instant, about thirty times the amount the foundation had typically raised in a year.