Six physicians who built billion-dollar companies are seeing their personal fortunes climb, according to Forbes’ billionaire rankings.
Thomas Frist Jr., MD — a former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon who co-founded HCA Healthcare with his father, Thomas Frist Sr., MD, in 1968 — remains healthcare’s richest physician by a wide margin. His net worth rose from $20.2 billion in 2023 to $25.2 billion in 2024, then to about $29 billion by February 2025 per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and to $41.1 billion as of Forbes’ 2026 World’s Billionaires List, more than doubling in three years as HCA’s stock price climbed. He ranks No. 32 on Forbes’ 2026 Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of $33.6 billion.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, a board-certified transplant surgeon who performed UCLA’s first whole-pancreas transplant and pioneered an encapsulated islet-cell transplant technique before leaving academic medicine to build biotech companies, went from $5.8 billion in 2023 to $6.2 billion in 2024 and roughly $10.5 billion in Forbes’ 2026 World’s Billionaires List, nearly doubling his fortune over the same stretch. He sold Abraxis BioScience and American Pharmaceutical Partners for a combined $9.1 billion and now leads ImmunityBio and NantWorks; on the Forbes 400 he ranks No. 151, with $10.3 billion.
Two Regeneron co-founders, Leonard Schleifer, MD, PhD, and George Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, saw their fortunes slide before a partial recovery. Schleifer’s net worth fell 26%, from $3.5 billion in 2024 to $2.6 billion in 2025, before climbing to $2.8 billion on Forbes’ 2026 World’s Billionaires List, and Yancopoulos’ dropped 24%, from $2.1 billion to $1.6 billion, before rising to $1.8 billion. Neither made Forbes’ 2026 Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans.
The fastest percentage gain among physician billionaires belonged to August Troendle, MD, who founded clinical research organization Medpace in 1992, after earning his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, working on cholesterol-drug development at Sandoz and serving as a medical review officer in the FDA’s Division of Metabolic and Endocrine Drug Products. He remains the company’s president and CEO. His net worth jumped from $1.6 billion in 2023 to $3.3 billion in 2024, a 106% increase, and to roughly $4.4 billion (No. 396 on the Forbes 400) in 2026.
Keith Dunleavy, MD, an internal medicine physician who conceived the idea for healthcare analytics firm Inovalon during his internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins,after earning his medical degree from Harvard, and became its CEO in 1998, saw steadier growth: $1.4 billion in 2021, $1.7 billion in 2022 and 2023, $1.9 billion in 2024, and about $4.6 billion (No. 375 on the Forbes 400, with family) in 2026, after Forbes revalued his roughly 11% stake following Inovalon’s 2021 take-private deal.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
