Public retirement funds serving teachers and government employees saw nearly $7.5 million in the market value of their investments eroded across two major stock collapses at biotechnology companies tied to Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, according to an analysis of federal securities filings. Ohio’s teachers’ retirement system held shares in both companies before the crashes.
The State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio reported owning 32,100 shares of Axovant Sciences worth $744,000 at the end of June 2017. Three months later, after the company announced the failure of a major Alzheimer’s drug trial and its stock price collapsed, STRS Ohio reported 33,100 shares worth just $227,000. The reported investment had plunged $517,000 in value, nearly 70%, even as Ohio’s share count increased.
It happened again with another Roivant-linked drug developer. On Dec. 31, 2020, STRS Ohio held 9,100 shares of Immunovant worth $420,000. On Feb. 2, 2021, Immunovant paused dosing in clinical trials of its lead experimental treatment after detecting elevated cholesterol levels in patients. The company’s stock plummeted, and by the end of March a position of the same size would have been worth approximately $146,000 — about $274,000 less than its December value.
Ohio’s March 2021 securities filing no longer listed Immunovant. That fact alone does not establish whether STRS Ohio sold its shares or retained a small position that it was no longer required to disclose. The public records establish the fund’s exposure before the crash, but do not establish its ultimate trading loss.
The pension exposure extended far beyond Ohio. Comparable holdings reported by public retirement systems in California, New York, Virginia, Florida and Wisconsin lost an estimated $7.49 million in value from stock-price declines between the quarter-end reporting dates examined. That sum is a calculation of market-price erosion on comparable share quantities, not a tally of confirmed realized losses or money transferred to Ramaswamy. It excludes a specific Immunovant loss for Ohio because its subsequent transactions remain unknown.
Ohio’s teachers’ fund lost more than half a million dollars in reported Axovant value
Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences, which held a controlling interest in Axovant. In its 2017 proxy statement, Axovant disclosed that Roivant owned 75 million shares, approximately 69.8% of the company. Ramaswamy served on Axovant’s board and held options to acquire 357,000 shares. His interests in the business therefore went beyond a distant association with its parent company.
Axovant’s centerpiece was intepirdine, an experimental Alzheimer’s disease treatment. The company had acquired rights to the drug from GlaxoSmithKline under a deal involving a $5 million payment at closing in December 2014 and another $5 million payment in June 2016, plus contingent payments tied to regulatory approvals and sales milestones. Axovant subsequently pursued a large Phase 3 trial intended to establish whether the treatment helped patients.
On Sept. 26, 2017, Axovant announced that its MINDSET trial had failed both principal efficacy measures. The study, involving 1,315 patients, found no statistically significant improvement over a placebo on the designated measures of cognition or daily functioning. Shares lost roughly 70% of their value in the immediate market reaction.
STRS Ohio’s quarterly disclosures put the fallout in concrete terms. The reported value of the pension’s Axovant shares declined from $744,000 to $227,000 between June 30 and Sept. 30. Because the fund held 1,000 more shares at the end of the period, the $517,000 reduction in the total value of its reported position actually understates the change in share price on a constant holding. Applied to its original 32,100 shares, the reported quarter-end prices imply approximately $524,000 in lost market value.
Other public pension investments were hit as well. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System reported 52,949 Axovant shares worth $1.228 million at the end of June 2017 and a slightly smaller position worth approximately $357,000 at the end of September. The share-price decline on the smaller reported holding was approximately $847,000. The State Board of Administration of Florida’s 11,195 shares dropped from approximately $260,000 to $77,000, while the State of Wisconsin Investment Board’s 20,000 shares declined from about $464,000 to $138,000. Those three pensions together faced an estimated $1.36 million in price-related declines over the quarter, in addition to Ohio’s approximately $524,000.
Immunovant’s 2021 clinical-trial pause sent pension holdings plunging again
Immunovant, another company in Roivant’s pharmaceutical portfolio, was developing a treatment known at the time as IMVT-1401 for autoimmune diseases. Roivant was Immunovant’s controlling shareholder. Ramaswamy had moved from chief executive to chairman of Roivant shortly before Immunovant’s 2021 setback.
On Feb. 2, 2021, Immunovant announced a voluntary pause in clinical dosing after preliminary data showed increases in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol among some patients receiving the drug. In the highest-dose group studied, mean LDL cholesterol had increased approximately 65% at the 12-week measurement, according to the company. Immunovant said no serious cardiovascular events had been reported in its trials at that point and that it intended to pursue the drug’s development after further evaluation. The announcement nevertheless triggered a stock-price collapse of more than 40% that day.
By March 31, Immunovant shares were worth roughly $16 apiece, compared with approximately $46 at the end of December. Public retirement funds holding the stock saw millions in market value disappear across that quarter.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System reported 77,054 shares worth $3.559 million in December 2020 and 68,937 shares worth $1.106 million three months later. Although the fund reduced its reported share count, the change in stock price on the smaller position accounted for an estimated $2.08 million decline in value.
The New York State Common Retirement Fund held 33,800 Immunovant shares at both reporting dates. Their value fell from $1.561 million to $542,000, a decline of $1.019 million without any change in the reported number of shares. The Virginia Retirement Systems’ position decreased from 31,900 shares worth $1.473 million to 26,900 worth $431,000, representing about $811,000 of price-related decline on the smaller holding.
California’s teachers’ pension also held Immunovant. Its 56,915 shares worth $2.629 million in December 2020 became 56,540 shares worth $907,000 at the end of March 2021. The price decline on a comparable 56,540-share position was approximately $1.70 million.
Across those four Immunovant investments alone, the estimated value lost to falling share prices was approximately $5.61 million in a single quarter. Adding four Axovant holdings from 2017, including Ohio’s, brings the comparable share-price decline across the eight examined pension positions to approximately $7.49 million.
The Ohio Immunovant position remains an unanswered accounting question
STRS Ohio’s Immunovant investment presents a particularly important gap between what public securities filings disclose and what can be established about a pension fund’s actual trading results. The system held 9,100 shares worth $420,000 at the end of 2020, before the clinical pause. Its March 2021 filing contained no Immunovant entry.
That missing entry is not proof the pension sold the stock. Under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Form 13F reporting rules, investment managers may omit a position when they own fewer than 10,000 shares and the holding is worth less than $200,000. Ohio’s original 9,100 shares would have been worth about $146,000 at the end-of-March share price, satisfying both thresholds. STRS Ohio could therefore have continued to hold the shares without listing them.
If it held all 9,100 shares through March 31, their reported market value would have declined by approximately $274,000 from December. If it sold earlier, the fund’s actual proceeds and investment outcome would depend on the transaction dates and prices. The public holdings reports do not answer that question, and they cannot support a definitive claim that Ohio realized a combined $750,000 loss across Axovant and Immunovant.
What the pension records prove — and what they do not
The combined figure is based on changes in publicly reported values, with adjustments for changes in share counts. For each pair of quarterly holdings, the analysis calculated the change in value per share and applied it to the smaller of the two reported share counts. That approach isolates the price change on a comparable quantity of stock instead of counting every reduction in the size of a fund’s holding as an investment loss. It cannot determine when shares were purchased or sold during the quarter, the original acquisition cost, or the amount ultimately realized when a position was closed. It also captures the full quarter’s price movement, not solely the trading-day response to a clinical announcement.
The filings likewise do not establish that Ramaswamy or the companies deliberately targeted pension systems as investors. The retirement funds held publicly traded shares, and their investment decisions cannot be inferred from the companies’ share registers. Ramaswamy’s corporate ties are established by company disclosures, but the pension figures do not establish his own realized financial gains or losses during either collapse.
Those distinctions do not diminish the central finding. Retirement money administered for Ohio teachers was invested in two separate companies within the business empire Ramaswamy built when major drug-development setbacks sent their stocks sharply lower. STRS Ohio’s Axovant holding alone lost more than half a million dollars in reported market value during the 2017 crash quarter. Four other pension positions in Immunovant lost more than $5.6 million in comparable share value during the first quarter of 2021.
The remaining question is not whether the public pensions were exposed to the collapses. Their own federal filings establish that they were. It is how much of that market damage became a permanent trading loss, particularly for Ohio’s teachers’ retirement system, whose Immunovant transactions are not visible in the quarterly disclosures.
