Comment by em500

I quickly went through the 10 largest European/American biomedical companies by revenue in Google Finance (Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Merck, Pfizer, AbbVie, Bayer, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Bristol Meyers). AFAICT the only one that beat the SP500 in total returns in the past 5 years was AbbVie. Many even trailed short government bonds or savings account returns. So for all the eye-watering gains in tax havens the owners/shareholders didn't seem have much to show for them.