Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) share price fell 9.57% on Wall Street yesterday to $6.71, giving a market cap of $7.8 billion, after NBC reported that Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family were in talks to pay up to $12 billion to settle 2,000 lawsuits on opioids.
The issue of the abuse of the painkillers is causing troubled Teva's share enormous volatility. On Monday, after an Oklahoma court ruled that J&J must pay a fine of $572 million, which was much less than expected, for playing down the addictive risks of the opioid painkillers, Teva's share price rose 5.25%, and in pre-market trading the share price was up another 4.45% yesterday.
But the pre-market gains were soon wiped out as investors revised their opinion on the Oklahoma ruling, which might not be so bad for cash-rich J&J, but was of a level that would hurt Teva with its debt burden (Teva has already reached an $85 million out-of-court settlement in Oklahoma) in future cases. Then came the Purdue settlement talks report to further weigh heavily on Teva.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 28, 2019
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