Health Care Up, Regulatory Risks Remain -- Health Care Roundup

Shares of health-care companies rose, but investors remain wary of regulatory risks in the sector. Shares of Teva Pharmaceutical rallied after the Israeli generic drug maker named former Novo Nordisk second-in-command Kare Schultz as its chief executive. Investors were reassured that Mr. Shultz's experience guiding the Danish drug maker's strategic shifts in recent years. Achillion Pharmaceuticals shares slid after partner Johnson & Johnson ended a hepatitis C drug-development collaboration. The health-care sector remains susceptible to regulatory risk, warned one brokerage, which recommended investors pick individual health-care stocks rather than seek broad exposure to the sector.

"Republican efforts around repeal and replace and potential impacts on utilization, public consternation around drug prices increases, and further pressure on drug pricing in generics from more powerful payor groups all created too much of a cloud of uncertainty to recommend an overweight position on the sector as a whole despite compelling relative valuation," analysts at brokerage Morgan Stanley said in a research note.

-Rob Curran, rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 11, 2017 16:38 ET (20:38 GMT)