Like many other businesses around the world, the biopharma industry has had a rough go of it in the first half of 2022. And drugmakers' share price changes largely reflected that tough environment, Evaluate Vantage reports.
Out of more than 600 drug developers that Vantage tracks with a market cap of $250 million or more, only a fifth ended June with their share prices up on the year, the publication reports.
In Big Pharma, Bristol Myers Squibb's shares rose the most percentage-wise, jumping 23% in the first half to reach a market cap of $163.9 billion. Part of the jump can be attributed to momentum for its psoriasis prospect deucravacitinib, which is set for an FDA decision later this year. Meanwhile, the company's largest product by revenue, multiple myeloma drug Revlimid, is now facing generic competition.
Moving down the list of share price gainers, Merck & Co. posted an increase of 19% in the first half to reach a $230.6 billion market cap, Vantage reports. Eli Lilly came close behind with a share price increase of 17%, growing to more than $300 billion in market cap.
Merck has been riding the momentum of its top drug Keytruda lately, which delivered more than $17 billion in sales last year, while Eli Lilly is busy with launches, including its new diabetes drug Mounjaro.
In a group of "large cap" companies that are worth $25 billion or more, Vertex, Takeda and Bayer posted share price gains of 28%, 22% and 21%, respectively, Vantage reports.
The losers, or the companies with stocks that went down, included familiar names such as Roche, Pfizer, Novartis, Moderna, BioNTech, BeiGene and Novavax.
Roche's share price fell by 16% in the first half of 2022, Vantage reports. The company suffered a major setback for the TIGIT anti-cancer platform during the period, and it lost about $75 billion in market cap.
As for some of the COVID-19 players, their shares corrected in recent months amid uncertain demand for vaccines. Pfizer shares lost 11% of their value during the period, while Moderna shares were walloped for a 44% decline.