FTSE in the red as drug firms face criticism

London’s top flight index remained in the red as drug firms came under fire when US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton took a swipe at the pharmaceutical industry.

The FTSE 100 index was down 18.88 points to 6816.9 after Mrs Clinton hit out at the 480% price hike of an allergy product owned by US pharma company Mylan.

She said it was “wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them”.

The comments from across the Atlantic caused investors to take flight from London-listed drug stocks, with Hikma Pharmaceuticals and Shire dropping 78p to 2150p and 123p to 4902p respectively, while AstraZeneca was off 69p to 5011p.

On the currency markets, the pound was down 0.3% against the dollar at 1.318 US dollars and 0.4% against the euro at 1.168 euros.

Hillary Clinton took a swipe at companies.