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Homemad moneyHighest paid female CEO: Race to save my daughter

Highest paid female CEO: Race to save my daughter

After the biotechs were slammed hard two months ago, many investors were freaked out and backed away from the group. However there is one company that has been one of the best performing stocks and has been talked about the least—which is precisely why Jim Cramer wanted to take a closer look.

United Therapeutics was founded by Dr. Martine Rothblatt, as a way to help to find a cure for pulmonary hypertension, a disease that ails her daughter. The company currently has four drugs on the market and an amazing pipeline that includes treatments for cardiopulmonary diseases, monoclonal antibody therapies that fight cancer, and glycobiology-based antiviral drugs.

Rothblatt has a history for backing edgy technological concepts. In 1990 she founded a company that was the first to use satellite frequencies that were assigned to television for the purpose of radio. At the time this was considered highly unusual, but the concept ultimately became Sirius XM Radio, which is now valued at $21 billion.

In 2013 Rothblatt was also ranked among the highest paid female executives in the United States, with a compensation of $38.2 million. According to her interview with Fortune she felt awkward from the attention received as being the highest paid female CEO, because she has only been a female for half of her life. In 1994 she underwent sex-reassignment surgery.

Martine Rothblatt, CEO, United TherapeuticsAdam Jeffery | CNBC

United Therapeutics reported in late April, and while it reported a whopping 41-cent earnings beat from a $2.14 basis, its revenues were lower than expected which caused the stock to drop 12.5 percent in the following two sessions. Since then, it has started to make a comeback.

Could United run even higher? To find out, Cramer spoke with United Therapeutics' Rothblatt, who serves as chairwoman, founder and CEO.

The CEO shared that when her youngest daughter developed pulmonary hypertension, there were no medicines approved for it from the FDA. Her daughter was given a life expectancy of only three to five years.

"I was head of Sirius XM satellite. I started that, and all my career I've been in satellite communications. But when your youngest daughter gets this kind of a diagnosis I was just going to stop everything I did and save her," Rothblatt said.

The drug that had just been approved at the time required it to be infused into blood vessels 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It required patients to wear a pump that was worn in a fanny pack covered in ice. United Therapeutics' drug that was approved is a simple pill that is taken two to three times a day, depending on the severity of the illness.

Today her daughter is a healthy 30 year old who is just one of the many individuals who have been able to have their lives extended thanks to this innovative therapy.

However, this company has many more projects in the pipeline that Cramer thinks many have not even valued into the stock.

"It actually is not, Jim, and I think that has missed people's view because there is so much attention on United Therapeutics as a pulmonary hypertension play," Rothblatt added.

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Two months ago United received approval from the FDA for the first drug ever approved for the treatment of neuroblastoma, an ultra-rare pediatric cancer. The CEO expects that it will add approximately $100 million a year.

"We pride ourselves on being different. Our mantra within our company is to identify the corridors of indifference where the pharmaceutical companies don't go, and then run like hell down those corridors," Rothblatt added.

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