Health stocks slide as Trump picks vaccine skeptic Kennedy

Pharmaceutical stocks slumped as President-elect Donald Trump said he’s tapping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services, potentially elevating a prominent vaccine skeptic and broader industry critic to a top role on health policy.

Companies that make immunizations bore the brunt of the losses, with Moderna Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Novavax Inc. all falling about 5% in early trading, adding to declines seen on Thursday.

London-listed GSK Plc and France’s Sanofi SA saw similar declines, with Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Papadakis cutting his rating on the former to hold from buy following the news.

“We consider vaccines to be amongst the greatest scientific achievements to impact public health: unfortunately this view is not shared by the nominee,” he wrote in a note to clients.

The declines went beyond vaccines, however, with U.S.-exposed European healthcare shares falling more broadly as Trump said that the industry had engaged in “deception, misinformation, and disinformation,” according to a post on X.

Shares of Novo Nordisk A/S fell as much as 4.9%, while Roche Holding AG declined 3.4% as more than 80% of the stocks in the Stoxx 600 Health Care Index retreated.

Kennedy’s selection “could have far-reaching and difficult-to-project implications for the biotechnology sector, adding a considerable layer of uncertainty and challenging investability,” Brian Abrahams, head of global healthcare research at RBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients.

Kennedy, 70, is the son of late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. He left the Democratic party to mount an independent presidential bid before eventually endorsing Republican Trump.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he called vaccines against the virus a “crime against humanity” and compared them to the Nazi Holocaust. The remarks drew condemnation, including from his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines.

As head of HHS, Kennedy would lead a sprawling federal department that encompasses more than 100 programs supporting medicine, public health and social services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration.

Still, “whether RFK ultimately takes the seat is still uncertain,” added RBC’s Abrahams. “The Senate may push back,” he said.