Drug Shares Jump After News of First American Ebola Case
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Dynamic Graphics/Creatas/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Shares of pharmaceutical companies that produce experimental Ebola drugs spiked in after-market trading on Tuesday following news of the first diagnosis of the deadly disease in the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday evening that they had confirmed the first U.S. case of an individual being diagnosed with the deadly virus, at a hospital in Texas.
Shares of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, one of the three known producers of an Ebola drug, jumped as much as 25 percent to more than $26 per share in after-hours trading on the NASDAQ.
Sarepta Therapeutics, which is also reportedly working on a drug, rose by more then 7 percent to over $22 per share on the NASDAQ.
The case announced by the CDC involved an individual who was recently in Liberia but did not have symptoms when traveling back to the United States on Sept. 19.
Although American Ebola patients have been treated in the United States prior to this diagnosis, they all contracted Ebola in West Africa. Ebola has killed 2,917 people and infected 3,346 others in Africa since the outbreak began in March.
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