Ebola Drug Stocks React Wildly to Dallas Patient Death

Health and Healthcare

Published: October 8, 2014 12:20 pm

Last Updated: October 8, 2014 12:22 pm

The sad news that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has died in Dallas’ Texas Health Presbyterian hospital now raises fears that Ebola drugs might not be a cure-all for patients. This is sad news on many aspects, particularly on the heels of a World Bank forecast that the toll for the nations inside of and around the Ebola outbreak could be in excess of $32 billion over the course of 2014 and 2015.

As it was believed that the experimental drug from Chimerix Inc. (NASDAQ: CMRX) was being administered to Duncan, it is without surprise that its shares fell apart on the news. We used an intraday chart from Yahoo! Finance to show just how bad the drop was for Chimerix, and we showed the reactions in the three competing Ebola experimental drug hopeful stocks has been. Note that the share prices will be updated as the day goes on.

Chimerix was down 10% at $29.95 on last look, but that was after having been up about 5% before the news of Duncan’s death broke. Its trading volume was 9 million shares at noon, and the 52-week range is $12.96 to $36.27 — and that 52-week high had just been hit on Wednesday.

ALSO READ: How Ebola Could Cost the World $32 Billion by End of 2015

Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NASDAQ: TKMR) saw its shares rise on the news after having been lower on the day ahead of the news. That pop is because it is a rival. Tekmira shares were as low as $20.75 earlier on Wednesday, but the stock was down only $0.45 at $23.65 at noon, against a 52-week range of $7.17 to $31.48.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) saw a smaller whip around in its shares. At noon the stock was down eight cents at $11.19, against a day range of $11.08 to $11.65 and against a 52-week range of $4.55 to $14.62.

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: SRPT) shares were still down handily by almost 4% at $20.14 right after noon. Its daily range was $19.66 to $21.23, and the 52-week range is $12.12 to $50.31.

We have included a chart below to show how each of the reactions looked shortly after the news broke of Duncan’s death.

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