Mania-prone biotech stocks were in the market’s doghouse Monday, after a 21-word tweet from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ping a drug company’s pricing policy sparked a sharp selloff for the group.
Clinton said on CBS Face the Nation Sunday rising drug costs are "something I hear about everywhere I go." The Democratic presidential front-runner didn't offer any details on what might be accomplished, the Associated Press reported.
Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his cohort, Rep. Elijah Cummings, have gotten a lot of attention for their proposed legislation to cut spiraling drug prices in the U.S. One person who seems to have noticed is Hillary clinton, who says she will unveil her own plan this week for controlling the "cost of skyrocketing prescription drugs."
The target of Clinton’s ire tweet is something of an extreme case though. Turing, run by 32-year-
old former hedge fund investor Martin Shkreli, acquired Daraprim, a drug used to treat patients with weakened immune systems from diseases like AIDS, in August and quickly raised prices from $13.50 a tablet to $750, according to the Times. Shkreli, who was sued by the last company he started, Retrophin, in August, was defiant in media appearances Monday, adamantly telling CNBC that Turing will not change its pricing following the uproar.
Referencing a New york report Times, on a steep price hike for a drug recently acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, Clinton lambasted the often-astronomical price tags for specialty drugs being developed by biotech and pharmaceutical companies and pledged to provide a plan to keep such therapeutic costs in check.
With the election still more than a year away, it is hard to know whether drug prices will become a hot-button item in the campaign. But with Clinton this week offering up her solution, it will draw some immediate attention, if from no other sector than Republican opponents criticizing her approach.
Health care and biotech have been one of the few corners of the equity market that has stayed broadly positive in 2015 as the market at large slipped into a correction. With signs of weakness throughout the market though, investors are fairly skittish over any potential threats to continued gains and when a high-profile criticism of the industry’s pricing from someone like Clinton lands it’s enough to inspire itchy trigger fingers to press the sell button.
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