edit: To clarify I do not mean to suggest that Trump profited financially like the fictional character in the movie, but rather Trump benefited by being able to tout a potential cure. Ie. Trump profited politically.
Trump's stake in hydroxychloroquine (which is a generic, and a bit safer than the chloroquine mentioned) is held via a trust and a mutual fund (so no direct investment) and is valued at less than $1,305, basically pointless.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-small-financial-ties-h...
Edit: Love how I'm getting downvoted for pointing out facts.
Which seems like an unreasonable leap to make given the copious evidence that he's acted to provide plausible deniability for Trump in the past.
Now a real president would have liquidated his investments and put them into a blind trust, but Trump doesn't have that sort of integrity. But it's a tiny amount in the scheme of things, I suspect he's grasping at straws and wants to dangerously rush opening the economy because he's more worried about no one going to his hotels or using his golf courses, not because of this tiny investment.
Which they "never received" but still paid the full amount over time.
It's a childish attempt to be able to say, nuh uh we didn't do it. Turns out that's all you really need.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-novartis...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/09/novartis-paid-trumps-lawyer-...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/novartis-michael-cohen-1-2-mill...
Then after they sign the contract they meet with him and determine that he "would be unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated". Without details but it sounds like they said, "OK we gave you all this money, we don't really want legal advice, we want you to influence the President or tell us privileged information" and Cohen said "No way that is unethical." They then had to pay the rest of the contract since it could only be terminated for cause and "lawyer refuses to commit crimes" isn't valid cause.
So yeah, Novartis is one of many companies that makes generic HCQ and sells it at near cost. It's not a money maker for them at all. It definitely sounds like they were trying to do something unethical and illegal here, but how is the fact their lawyer refused to go along with it evidence of something wrong with Cohen or any of his other clients?
Like most people with any 401k retirement savings or other stock holdings (includes most people in the US), I have a mix of mutual funds and indexed funds that include stocks I've never heard of and don't care to know anything about. I bet I own part of some company that makes HCQ as well. I probably also own Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Defense, Offense, and a bunch of other horrible things, as probably nearly everyone that posts here does as well without realizing it.
We have no evidence that Trump profited financially, but from what we know of past leaks from the whitehouse I'd be surprised if nobody profited financially as well.