As the Trump bump for biotech continues to reverberate after he became president-elect on Wednesday, biotech may now have more to celebrate as a new, but lightly detailed, healthcare update is being seen by some as a positive read-through for the industry.
In the latest
Healthcare section of Trump’s website, he says his administration will “Advance research and development in healthcare” and more pointedly “Reform the Food and Drug Administration, to put greater focus on the need of patients for new and innovative medical products.”
Some have read this as being a boon for biotech, especially the latter section. Trump and the Republican Party are known for wanting to deregulate as part of their broader political philosophy. Deregulating the agency could in essence help remove barriers to approval.
The FDA too has over the past four years been making an active effort to speed up its processes and get more meds on the market more quickly than ever before, using new systems such as breakthroughs, fast tracks and priority reviews.
What reform will actually mean remains highly vague, but alongside the apparent lack of appetite to push for drug pricing reform from the Party--which will hold control of all the main branches of government next year--these changes have helped
continue the rally in shares for the Nasdaq biotech index ($IBB) and the S&P biotech ($XBI), which were both up around 9% on Wednesday and continued to rise by 1.6% and 3.1% respectively yesterday after a dismal October.