Trump Threats on Drug Prices Leave Investors Unfazed These Days
Nasdaq biotech index rebounds after Trump blasts drug makers.
(Bloomberg) -- What a difference a year makes.
In January 2017, Donald Trump, then president-elect, sank pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks when he said companies are “getting away with murder” with high drug prices. On Monday, the shares quickly rebounded from a hiccup, after the president at a swearing-in ceremony for his new health secretary pledged to bring prescription prices “way down.”
The contrast highlights a year of threats that have so far resulted in little action. The administration hasn’t passed any policy that would directly curb drug prices, and the prospect of price negotiating by the government -- one of the industry’s biggest fears -- has faded away. Pressure on the industry was relieved last June, when several reports said the administration was working on an executive order that would have been more friendly than punitive to the pharmaceutical industry, which sent stocks up.
In the meantime, as Trump continued to blast drugmakers publicly, the market increasingly shrugged. In August, he tweeted that Merck & Co. CEO Ken Frazier was responsible for “RIPOFF DRUG PRICES” after Frazier resigned from a council of manufacturing executives. In October, he repeated that he wanted to get “prescription drug prices way down.”
Here’s a look at how the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index reacted a year ago and now:
To contact the reporters on this story: Cecile Daurat in Wilmington at cdaurat@bloomberg.net, Caroline Chen in San Francisco at cchen509@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecile Daurat at cdaurat@bloomberg.net, Timothy Annett
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