Health Care Up as Rally Widens -- Health Care Roundup

Health-care companies rose as traders continued to migrate to a sector that had lagged the stock market in 2023.

The health-care sector is one of the three strongest returning areas of the 11 on the S&P 500 so far this year, suggesting a rally may be broadening out, said J.D. Joyce, president of Houston financial advisory Joyce Wealth Management.

Shares of Gilead Sciences plunged after the biotech concern said its blockbuster cancer treatment, Trodelvy, failed to meet goals in a clinical trial on lung-cancer patients. Trodelvy, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved to treat a number of forms of breast and urothelial cancer, is among Gilead's best-selling cancer drugs, and sales were expected to grow substantially in the coming years.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, is seeking to retract six studies and correct 31 other papers as part of a probe involving four of its senior cancer researchers and administrators, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Obesity drug makers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are researching ways to offset the deleterious effects of weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1s on muscle mass.

Write to Rob Curran at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-22-24 1743ET