Healthcare: Drug Pricing Concerns Weigh on Valuations, Creating Opportunities
Innovation, consolidation, and a mixed regulatory picture for healthcare stocks in the second quarter.
Innovation, consolidation, and a mixed regulatory picture for healthcare stocks in the second quarter.
U.S. governmental rhetoric on bringing drug pricing down will not likely have a major impact on the largest drug market in the world, despite concerns that we believe have weighed on valuations. The Trump administration’s policy paper titled "The Trump Administration Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs" largely supports increasing generic drug competition, slightly strengthening Medicare drug price negotiations, improving drug price transparency, and providing more information to help patients lower out-of-pocket costs, all of which we believe have a limited impact on branded U.S. drug prices. In aggregate, we think the proposals would likely impact less than 1% of U.S. drug spending, excluding the potential changes to negotiations for Medicare Part B drugs, which could offer another 1%-2% reduction in U.S. drug spending depending on the exact implementation.
Damien Conover does not own shares in any of the securities mentioned above. Find out about Morningstar’s editorial policies.