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Trump pledge sinks Italian pharma firms' stocks

The Local Italy
The Local Italy - [email protected]
Trump pledge sinks Italian pharma firms' stocks
Donald Trump speaking at the press conference. Photo: Timothy A Clary/AFP

Italian pharmaceutical firms saw their stock prices drop on Thursday morning after US President-Elect Donald Trump used part of his chaotic press conference the day before to say that the US should negotiate better prices from drug companies.

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The stock of Italian pharmaceutical giant Pierrel was trading 4.3 percent lower on Thursday morning. Pierrel provides services in clinical research and scientific marketing, with its head office and production plant located in Capua, near Naples.

Milan-based pharmaceutical company, Recordati, was down 2.5 percent, and shares in Amplifon, a firm providing specialist hearing healthcare, were down 3.87 percent.

Trump said at his press conference in New York that he would make the pharmaceutical industry bid for government contracts.

“There's very little bidding on drugs. We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world. And yet we don't bid properly. We're going to start bidding,” Trump said.

US law currently does not allow federal insurance programme Medicare to negotiate drug prices, essentially allowing the pharmaceutical industry to set their own drug prices.

“They’re getting away with murder,” Trump said about the industry. “Pharma has a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power and there is very little bidding.”

It wasn’t just Italian pharmaceutical companies that felt the immediate effects of Trump’s pledge. The same impact was reported in Denmark, and Bloomberg Markets reported that the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences Index both had their biggest single-day drops in three months, falling 3 and 1.7 percent respectively.  

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