Big Pharma Stocks Take A Hit After Trump Picks RFK Jr To Head Up Health
Following president-elect Trump’s announcement that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will head up Health and Human Services, big pharma stocks have slumped.
GSK PLC and AstraZeneca PLC Saw declines in pre market trading, with Moderna Inc and Pfizer stock also opening lower.
Reuters notes:
Shares of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies fell, with the S&P 500 Pharmaceuticals index down about 2%. Shares of packaged food and beverage giants such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola also declined.
Vaccine makers were the worst hit on Friday, declining for a second day following the announcement of Kennedy’s appointment. Moderna shares fell almost 7% after hitting their lowest level since April 2020. Shares of Moderna, which makes vaccines for COVID-19 and for respiratory syncytial virus, have tumbled about 30% since Trump’s election victory on Nov. 5. Rival Pfizer shed 4.5% on Friday, while Novavax, whose only product is a COVID vaccine, lost almost 2%.
Wall Street analysts noted that the development has sparked vast uncertainty across the biotechnology sector.
On Thursday afternoon, Pfizer stock dropped around 57 cent, while Moderna stock price took a dip of $2.64.
Russ Mould, an investment director at AJ Bell, commented “Pharmaceutical stocks left the FTSE 100 looking sickly on Friday morning as AstraZeneca and GSK shares came under pressure.”
“The impact on the sector is hard to judge fully at this stage but, at the very least, it will cause a good deal of uncertainty,” he added.
Goldman’s Martin Ehigiator told clients on Friday morning “Healthcare/Pharma in focus this morning (GSXEPHAR), following Robert F Kennedy being confirmed as Trump’s nominee for health secretary which sparked a pharma and specifically vaccine makers sell off into the close yesterday. To this point, Kennedy has been vocal on vaccines in the past, seen as one of the most prominent anti-vaxxer’s in the US. Hence witnessing a -3sd move in our Pharma basket.”
Kennedy has been tasked with ‘making America healthy again,’ with Trump promising to let him “go wild.”
“He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him get to it,” Trump said during his victory speech.
As we highlighted earlier, CNN freaked out over the RFK Jr. appointment, with Jake Tapper saying Kennedy is someone who “has been pushing quackery, who has been pushing lies, who has been pushing conspiracy theories.”
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