Healthcare stocks, especially the biotech segment, and related exchange traded funds plunged Wednesday after President-elect Donald Trump singled out the rising drug prices at a press conference.
The healthcare sector was the worst performing area of the equities market on Wednesday, with the Health Care Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLV) down 1.3%.
Meanwhile, biotech-related ETFs led the retreat downward, with the PowerShares Dynamic Biotech & Genome (NYSEArca:PBE) down 4.2%, ALPS Medical Breakthroughs ETF (NYSEArca: SBIO) down 4.5% and BioShares Biotechnology Clinical Trials Fund (NasdaqGM: BBC) down 4.3%.
On Wednesday, Trump said he will force the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to bid for government businesses in order to help save consumers billions of dollars, Bloomberg reports.
“They are getting away with murder. Pharma has a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power and there is very little bidding,” Trump said at a press conference in New York. “We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world and yet we don’t bid properly and we’re going to save billions of dollars.”