Washington - QNA
A tweet posted to Sen. Bernie Sanders caused the stock of a pharmaceutical company to crash, costing the company millions of dollars.
Sanders told his 2.6 million followers that Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. had raised the price of its leukemia drug "to almost $199,000 a year". "Drug corporations’ greed is unbelievable," the Vermont senator tweeted.
Shortly after the tweet, Ariad’s stock lost 15% of its value, or $387 million dollars, its biggest intraday decline in over a year, according to Bloomberg.
The drug mentioned in Sanders tweet, Iclusig, helps to treat a rare form of leukemia, and has indeed seen its price raised four times this year alone, to $16,000 for a 30-day pack.
Hillary Clinton had a similar effect on the drug company Mylan, which saw its shares plummet after she accused it of "price gouging" consumers who buy its EpiPen allergy shot