A tweet from US presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton complaining about a price hike in the cost of one particular drug, knocked $15bn off the value of share prices generally in the US pharmaceutical sector.
Referring to a company which increased the price of a medicine for a form of parasitic infection from $13.50 to $750 overnight, Clinton complained, “Price gouging like this is the speciality drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow, I’ll lay out a plan to take it on.”
Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow I'll lay out a plan to take it on. -H https://t.co/9Z0Aw7aI6h
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 21, 2015
The tweet sent the Nasdaq biotech index in New York lower by almost 5% and shares in companies like Biogen, Alexion and Gilead, which manufacture high-priced drugs for rare or complex diseases, fell by between 3% and 5%.
The candidate for the democratic nomination to run for US president in 2016 included a link to a New York Times article, which outlined how a 62-year-old drug had increased by 5,556% overnight after being acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals.
Martin Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing says that the extra money will be used to invest in R&D to develop a new safer version of the drug - and that the price will not be reduced.
This price increase is not an isolated incident and markets will be paying close attention to Ms Clinton's announcement later today.
