Hillary Tweets, Biotechnology Stock Prices Fall

[SF-TX]

I would not be surprised if Clinton's cronies/financiers just made a fortune off shorting biotech stocks.

Biotechnology stocks fell Monday after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted Monday that she would release a plan to combat the high cost of prescription drugs.

The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell 3.4 percent to 3,606.07 at 12:16 p.m. in New York, the biggest intraday drop since since Aug. 24, with most of the decline coming after Clinton’s comment on Twitter.

"Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous," Clinton tweeted at 10:56 a.m. "Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on."

Link

[tonyz]

Hillary's done remarkably well herself in the cattle futures market.

[Team Sergeant]

Hillary Tweets, Biotechnology Stock Prices Fall

Too bad it doesn't work the other way around.......

[Box]

Its awesome to know that some people can damage the economy just by posting on twitter...

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Hillary Tweets, Biotechnology Stock Prices Fall

Ya know Team Sergeant, somebody else was in the WH back around '93-'94 I think & I seem to recall their wife working on some universal health care task force and a quick search indicates that...
Hunh - what d'ya know about that? It appears biotechs weren't doing so well then.
Sure. Sure. I know correlation is not causation. It's probably nothing.
Never mind.

We havin' fun yet?

[Sdiver]

The only comment I can make on this, is ... SMH

Turing Pharmaceuticals raises price of anti-infection drug Daraprim 5,000%

Price of Daraprim went from $13.50 to $750


Stocks of makers of biologic and "specialty" drugs plunged Monday after Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she'll soon release a plan to address "price gouging" in the industry.

It was the one of the worst days of the year for the stock market performance of the biotech industry.

Clinton's announcement on Twitter follows news that drugmaker Turing Pharmaceuticals hiked the price of a 53-year-old drug for a potentially deadly parasitic infection from $13.50 per pill to $750. Because the drug, Daraprim, treats patients with compromised immune systems, the price hike of more than 5,000 percent sparked outrage from medical groups representing doctors who care for patients with HIV and other infectious diseases.

One drugmaker, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals PLC, saw shares drop 10.02 percent. The top 20 drugmakers whose products include biologic or specialty drugs posted share drops of more than 2 percent. And the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index dropped 4.4 percent.

Biologic drugs are produced in living cells and specialty drugs treat complex, chronic conditions, usually need to be injected and sometimes refrigerated, and also are very expensive.

Many new drugs for cancer, hepatitis C, rare disorders and even a new class of cholesterol drugs have prices in the range of $80,000 or more for a year or course of treatment. Some are major medical advances, saving lives and other medical costs. Others are minor improvements, such as cancer drugs that add a few months' survival over existing medicines.

So while the Turing price hike was getting the blame Monday for the stock slump, it's only the latest - though perhaps most outrageous - example of price hikes, or sky-high prices for newly launched drugs. Insurance companies, politicians, advocates for patients and other critics have been blasting those prices as outrageous and unsustainable for the health care system, not to mention patients who sometimes must pay up to 30 percent of the cost.

In the case of Turing's Daraprim, the company obtained rights to sell the drug, the only U.S.-approved treatment for toxoplasmosis, in August and hiked the price overnight. The company, run by a former hedge fund manager named Martin Shkreli, on Monday repeated comments meant to justify the increase, saying that Turing hopes to improve the drug's formulation and develop new, better drugs for the infection. It also stressed that some patients can get financial aid from the company to obtain the drug.

Biotech analyst Steve Brozak, president of WBB Securities, said that because of the furor over Turing's action, pharmaceutical and biotech drugmakers will have to defend themselves "against the coming onslaught."

"I don't think Turing has a defense," Brozak said, adding, "As long as this is debated, nothing good for the biotech industry and biotech investors can happen."

Clinton's chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been railing about high drug prices for about a year and recently reintroduced legislation that would enable the Medicaid program to get lower prices for some drugs and allow U.S. residents to buy cheaper drugs from Canada.

Trade groups representing pharmaceutical and biotech companies oppose letting Americans buy drugs overseas and have repeatedly said in the past couple of years that price controls would limit the amount of money their companies can spend on research, limiting the number of new drugs developed. While small companies trying to win their first approval might have trouble money raising capital from investors, many of the top makers of biologic and specialty drugs are flush with cash and spend more on marketing than research and development.

Even those companies got sucked into the share downturn.

The top 20 drugmakers, whose stock price rarely moves more than 1 percent or so in a day, took significant hits Monday. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. shares dropped 2.5 percent, Merck & Co. shares 2.2 percent and Pfizer shares 1.3 percent. Even giant Johnson & Johnson, one of the top makers of biologic drugs, saw shares dip 0.3 percent.

J&J, Pfizer and Merck are among the 30 Dow components, so their drops cut into the Dow's gain Monday.

Smaller, less-diversified makers of biologic and specialty drugs were hit even harder. Biogen Inc. shares dropped 5.6 percent, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. 4.8 percent, Endo International PLC 4.4 percent and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. 3.8 percent. Biotech giants Amgen Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc., both of which have been criticized for ultra-high drug prices, fell 2.3 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.

Seven other drugmakers were among the 30 biggest losers on Wall Street Monday.


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/life...-daraprim-5000

[kalanis]

Originally Posted by tonyz

Hillary's done remarkably well herself in the cattle futures market.

Yep. Grand total of 4 trades over a 3 week period with a deposit of $1000 that netted $60K and change in profit. She must have been on NZT.

[Trapper John]

I have been arguing for years now that the prices for prescription drugs are outrageous, unjustifiable, and economically unsustainable.

As I posted elsewhere (Alarming Rise in antibiotic resistance thread in the General Medical Forum) we have passed the point of diminishing return for new drug discovery/development, i.e. we can apply infinite dollars and get no new drugs effecting disease outcomes. (Cross thread points please )

I have also warned that continuation on the present path will result in governmental price controls similar to that in effect in Europe. Well guess what's coming? Doh!


But, for every problem or disaster there is in opportunity for those that are prepared!

[Flagg]

I don't understand the massive price rises on generic drugs.

IF there are multiple producers of generics, wouldn't competitive pricing make such rises unsustaianable?

Or is this just a very rough free market tactic by a generic manufacturer with no current competition?

I wonder how quickly a generic manufacturer could rapidly realign production?

----

Our problem down here is the Trans Pacific Partnership looking to break up the buying monopoly called Pharmac which bulk purchases all pharm and splits it up to all of our regional district health boards.

TPP will try to force buying by district health boards.

Same pharm purchased, but in local/regional split/lower quantities resulting in higher prices.

One of the reasons it's not very popular down here.

I'm all for Pharm profit, what else wil pay for new/future drugs?

But I also like the idea of better/faster/cheaper generic manufacturers on off patent pharm.