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Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.
October 31, 2005: 10:55 AM EST
By Nelson D. Schwartz, Fortune senior writer
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NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to
be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences,
the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after
drug in the world.
Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still
holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by
Rumsfeld.
The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the
ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of
the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.
…snip…
"I don't know of any biotech company that's so politically well-connected," says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity
Partners in San Francisco.
…snip…
Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense in
early 2001. And late last month, notes a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld went even further and had the Pentagon's
general counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he could and could not be involved in if there were an
avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.
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ENDS