Addressing an issue talked about for several days, President Trump yesterday declared fentanyl abuse a Public Health Emergency. Of note is that the Public Health Emergency status directs agencies to devote more of existing resources to the issue, as opposed to providing additional funding as would be the case of a National Emergency. Trump cited that FEMA funds are all but exhausted from dealing with hurricane effects in the Southeast over the last several months and left it to Congress to provide funding for fighting Fentanyl abuse.
The New York Times has a brief overview and analysis of Trump's directive here. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/trump-opioid-crisis.html
Deaths from opioid overdoses topped 64,000 last year, with studies suggesting slightly more than half of these deaths may be attributed to fentanyl, a synthetic drug that is 50-100x stronger than heroin and primarily used to treat late-stage cancer patients. See fentanyl and opioid overdose deaths as detailed by CBS.
The Pharmaceutical Sector was directly affected by these announcements, since some companies produce and market fentanyl in various forms. Coinciding with yesterday's announcement was the arrest of a billionaire former pharmaceutical executive on charges of bribing doctors to over-prescribe his company's fentanyl spray. Since this executive was also controlling shareholder of the pharmaceutical company, the company's stock crashed and was subsequently suspended by the exchange pending an information request sent to the company. Hopefully investors in the company did their due diligence prior to these events unfolding. The author also hopes any potential victims of these alleged practices get some degree of justice.
Arrest of former pharmaceutical executive: http://fortune.com/2017/10/26/john-kapoor-insys-therapeutics-arrested-net-worth/
The New York Times has a brief overview and analysis of Trump's directive here. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/trump-opioid-crisis.html
Deaths from opioid overdoses topped 64,000 last year, with studies suggesting slightly more than half of these deaths may be attributed to fentanyl, a synthetic drug that is 50-100x stronger than heroin and primarily used to treat late-stage cancer patients. See fentanyl and opioid overdose deaths as detailed by CBS.
The Pharmaceutical Sector was directly affected by these announcements, since some companies produce and market fentanyl in various forms. Coinciding with yesterday's announcement was the arrest of a billionaire former pharmaceutical executive on charges of bribing doctors to over-prescribe his company's fentanyl spray. Since this executive was also controlling shareholder of the pharmaceutical company, the company's stock crashed and was subsequently suspended by the exchange pending an information request sent to the company. Hopefully investors in the company did their due diligence prior to these events unfolding. The author also hopes any potential victims of these alleged practices get some degree of justice.
Arrest of former pharmaceutical executive: http://fortune.com/2017/10/26/john-kapoor-insys-therapeutics-arrested-net-worth/
