One brash idea to save the drug industry — and (maybe) make a few billion dollars

NEW YORK — Is Vivek Ramaswamy the smartest guy in biotech?

His business model all but depends on it. The 31-year-old former hedge fund manager has raised $1 billion in just two years to play a sprawling game of pharmaceutical moneyball — sifting through the thousands of would-be drugs that larger companies have left to gather dust and picking out a few gems he believes can be developed into blockbuster medicines.

Ramaswamy was just 29, with neither a PhD nor MBA, when he devised this approach and founded Roivant Sciences to carry it out. Confident and charismatic, he speaks like the valedictorian of a school for biotech CEOs — explaining his vision in full paragraphs dappled with business buzzphrases, rarely sounding rehearsed and yet always staying on message.

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