Martine Aliana Rothblatt was born in 1954, in Chicago, Illinois USA, to parents Rosa Lee and Hal Rothblatt, of observant Jewish descent. She is a lawyer, writer and entrepreneur, the founder, chairperson and co-CEO of United Therapeutics company and President and CEO of its Lung Biotechnology public benefit company.
So just how wealthy is Martine Rothblatt at present? Sources state that Rothblatt has earned a net worth of over $390 million, as of early 2016. The main source of her wealth has been her pharmaceutical business, her numerous contributions to satellite communications as well as her publications. She was the highest-paid female CEO in the USA in 2013 with a compensation of $38 million.
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Martine Rothblatt Net Worth $390 Million
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Born as a male, Rothblatt grew up in San Diego and Los Angeles. She enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles(UCLA) to study communications but dropped out after two years and focused on traveling. She became inspired by an Air Force satellite dish and decided to return to college to eventually become an expert in the law of space with a joint J.D. and MBA degree received upon her graduation in 1981. She later attended the Royal London School of Medicine & Dentistry earning a Ph.D. in medical ethics in 2001.
After graduating, Rothblatt initially worked for Covington & Burling law firm in Washington D.C. representing the television industry before the Federal Communications Commission, but left the position in 1982 to enroll in the University of Maryland, College Park to study astronomy. Rothblatt then worked for NASA getting FCC approval for the IEEE cband system and for the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Radio Frequencies.
In 1983 Rothblatt became part of a newly invented technology, a satellite system called Geostar and in 1986 she left college to embrace the position of the President and CEO of Geostar Corporation. She also contributed to several other unique patents of satellite communications technology, such as with her MBA thesis PanAmSat, which became the basis of the first private international satellite system. All contributed to her net worth.
In 1990 she launched a global satellite system called WorldSpace, replacing shortwave radio and providing tele-education services, and became the CEO of WorldSpace Corporation. The same year she founded and began serving as CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio, today’s Sirius XM, which was the first satellite-radio-service broadcasting system. Rothblatt’s wealth was boosted.
In 1991 her youngest child was diagnosed with a rare and fatal disease, a pulmonary arterial hypertension. Rothblatt left Sirius and WorldSpace to devote herself to finding a cure for the disease. She eventually found a doctor who worked on a treatment for the illness and together they founded a medical biotechnology company in 1996 now known as United Therapeutics, located in Silver Spring. The company has created an oral medication called Orentitram which saved her daughter’s life, while also creating treatments for other types of diseases. Rothblatt now works as a communications technologist and medical biotechnologist. She is the company’s CEO and chairperson. After reaching a huge success, the company was publicly traded, and United Therapeutics has made Rothblatt America’s most highly paid female CEO.
Rothblatt is also a leading advocate for human rights, who played a major part in the International Bar Association in presenting the United Nations with a draft project – Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights.
In 2004 she founded Terasem Movement, a new religion endorsing the development of science and technology. It focuses on creating human ‘mindfiles’ that are actually thoughts, memories and feelings. Terasem believes that mindfiles can be recorded allowing their soul to live on and be available in the future through a robot. She even created a humanoid robot named Bina 48, after her wife Bina. Big companies have been making major investments in Rothblatt’s new technology. She has also produced one of the first cybermuseums, the World Against Racism Museum.
Rothblatt has published six books: “Radiodetermination Satellite Services and Standards” about satellite communications technology in 1987, “Apartheid of Sex” about gender freedom in 1995, “Unzipped Genes” on genomics in 1997, “Two Stars for Peace” proposing that Israel and Palestine become States in the USA, published in 2003, “Your Life or Mine” on xenotransplantation in 2004 and “Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality” about a new high-teach mindclones, published in 2014.
In her personal life, Rothblatt has been married to Bina Rothblatt for 33 years now. Bina remained Rothblatt’s wife after Rothblatt underwent a change of gender in 1994. They have four children.
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