Health Care Stocks Up As Latest ACA Repeal Effort Founders

Shares of health-care companies ticked up after an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act looked set to fail. Sen. John McCain said he would not support the latest effort to repeal the 2010 health-care reform act, likely ending the push by Republicans in the upper house of Congress. Mr. McCain's opposition would make a vote to carry the bill almost impossible, given that two other Republican senators, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine, already have come out against it or have signaled concerns about it. Shares of Versatis plunged after its human-growth hormone product failed to show superiority to an existing treatment in a clinical trial. Shares of Ascendis Pharma, which is developing a rival treatment, rose sharply.

-Rob Curran, rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 22, 2017 16:26 ET (20:26 GMT)