Typically, state intervention in pharmaceuticals is aimed at drug cost control which, if taken to extremes, can border on nationalism.

A slow start to the year in health care is usually tempered by announcements that build up to investor conference season. However, early 2022’s plethora of negative announcements may continue biotech’s unloved status of 2021.

The news desert over the holidays meant that any Phase III clinical study announcement would be closely examined. Unfortunately, BridgeBio’s shock Phase III failure was made worse by elusive explanations.

While the Omicron variant does not bode well for 2022, vaccine boosters and oral antivirals are the products from the pharmaceutical sector that should keep on giving. Even if partisan analysts choose to forget them.

In a rare disease indication, clinical trial efficacy in Phase III should be the ticket to successful sales. But safety issues warrant careful consideration.

As well as hedging investors’ portfolios against the effects of pandemic waves, the stock prices of Pfizer and Merck & Co seem to be negatively correlated to each other, just as their pandemic-related revenues are to their traditional drug sales.