US Heathcare Reform Won't Impact Pharma Stocks

Morningstar analysts say today's long-awaited Supreme Court ruling has a net immaterial impact on the UK pharma sector

Alex Morozov, CFA 28 June, 2012 | 6:24PM
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UK pharma groups stocks discussed in this note: AstraZeneca (AZN), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK), Shire (SHP).

The US Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate in a narrow ruling Thursday, clearing the main hurdle for the healthcare reform in the States known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). While it is possible that the battle over the fate of the healthcare law will now shift to the legislature, given the low probability of Republicans gaining a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, we now believe the PPACA isn't likely to be repealed. We've incorporated the anticipated effects of the PPACA in all of our projections and, as a result, the effect of the ruling on our valuations and recommendations across the healthcare sector is immaterial. 

For the ‘Big Pharma’ group, we expect the increased demand for drugs as a direct result of the mandate largely will offset the increased fees and rebates associated with health-care reform. Our valuations are unchanged. However, since the costs related to health-care reform are front-end loaded (which started in 2010) and the increased demand will not likely begin until 2014 (when the mandate goes into effect), we believe investors' sentiment towards the drug group should improve as the tailwind of increased demand for drugs begins to materialise in 2014.

The generic drug manufacturers are largely unaffected, in our view. Most of the generic manufacturers have broad geographic operations and generic drug pricing was relatively unaffected by the law. We think additional drug volumes from newly insured patients are relatively immaterial to our fair value estimates for the generic firms. The biosimilars approval pathway should remain intact.

The device side was viewed largely as a relative loser when the reform was passed, and the ruling doesn't change much in terms of our assessments of the industry's prospects going forward.

For other sectors, the impact is also fairly muted. 

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Alex Morozov, CFA  Alex Morozov is the director of the health-care team at Morningstar.

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