(BFM Stock Exchange) – La Food and Drug Administration appointed Vinay Prasad, as director of the Biology and Research Center. This leader is perceived as hostile to the pharmaceutical industry, especially on the question of vaccination. On the Paris Stock Exchange, Sanofi is hard while Moderna collapsed at Wall Street on Tuesday evening.

The pharmaceutical sector is hardly spared by political risk on the stock market. The compartment had already folded, on April 9, after Donald Trump announced that American imports of pharmaceutical products would be the subject of “major” customs rights.

On Monday, May 5, the American president also said that these customs surcharges on medication imports would be announced within two weeks.

Pharmaceutical groups are still suffering this Wednesday, May 7. The fault of an appointment within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American health authority. The latter announced that Vinay Prasad, an oncologist who had been critical of the vaccination of children against the COVVI-19, would take the lead of the “Center for Biologics and Research”, an body for regulating pharmaceutical products dependent on the FDA.

This structure ensures in particular that pharmaceutical products respect federal security laws.

“The whole pharmaceutical sector suffers on the stock market in Europe following this appointment, which weighs a little because Vinay Prasad is perceived as hostile to the pharmaceutical lobby”, decrypts an analyst. “However, his academic journey is renowned, it is not a fanciful appointment,” he nuance.

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Sanofi suffers

“The market reacts negatively to the new one, taking into account certain elements concerning Prasad and its position on COVVI-19 vaccines, the wider process of drug approval, including accelerated approvals and other comments which, at first glance, seem to be more anti-industrial than amicaux”, abounds with Bloomberg, Jared Holz, analyst of the health sector at Mizuho Securities USA.

Recalls of the actions of the sector were pronounced in Wall Street, Tuesday evening, following this appointment. Merck lost 4.6% in the wake of the announcement, Pfizer 4.15% while Moderna, a vaccine specialist, plunged 12.3%.

European groups are also hard this Wednesday. Roche lost 1.6% in Zurich, Astrazeneca 2% in London.

On the Paris Stock Exchange, Sanofi accuses the highest drop in CAC 40 in the early afternoon, yielding 3.5%. The United States represents approximately 50% of revenues from the tricolor group.

Note that during the recent publication of its results last month Sanofi had not given clear indications on the potential impact of customs duties in the United States.

“Management has provided no sensitivity to what it considers a theoretical customs risk, but has spoken of high levels of manufacturing in the United States for key products and an increasing American footprint,” says UBS.

Last November the announcement of the Robert Kennedy Jr vaccinosceptic at the head of the Department of Health in the Trump administration had already put European health groups on the stock market under pressure.

Former lawyer in environmental law, Robert Francis Kennedy Jr, propagated conspiracy theories on COVVI-19 vaccines, establishing pretended links between vaccination and autism. This despite numerous studies showing that this association does not have to be.