IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0071966.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stock Market Returns and Clinical Trial Results of Investigational Compounds: An Event Study Analysis of Large Biopharmaceutical Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas J Hwang

Abstract

Background: For biopharmaceutical companies, investments in research and development are risky, and the results from clinical trials are key inflection points in the process. Few studies have explored how and to what extent the public equity market values clinical trial results. Methods: Our study dataset matched announcements of clinical trial results for investigational compounds from January 2011 to May 2013 with daily stock market returns of large United States-listed pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Event study methodology was used to examine the relationship between clinical research events and changes in stock returns. Results: We identified public announcements for clinical trials of 24 investigational compounds, including 16 (67%) positive and 8 (33%) negative events. The majority of announcements were for Phase 3 clinical trials (N = 13, 54%), and for oncologic (N = 7, 29%) and neurologic (N = 6, 24%) indications. The median cumulative abnormal returns on the day of the announcement were 0.8% (95% confidence interval [CI]: –2.3, 13.4%; P = 0.02) for positive events and –2.0% (95% CI: –9.1, 0.7%; P = 0.04) for negative events, with statistically significant differences from zero. In the day immediately following the announcement, firms with positive events were associated with stock price corrections, with median cumulative abnormal returns falling to 0.4% (95% CI: –3.8, 12.3%; P = 0.33). For firms with negative announcements, the median cumulative abnormal returns were –1.7% (95% CI: –9.5, 1.0%; P = 0.03), and remained significantly negative over the two day event window. The magnitude of abnormal returns did not differ statistically by indication, by trial phase, or between biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms. Conclusions: The release of clinical trial results is an economically significant event and has meaningful effects on market value for large biopharmaceutical companies. Stock return underperformance due to negative events is greater in magnitude and persists longer than abnormal returns due to positive events, suggesting asymmetric market reactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas J Hwang, 2013. "Stock Market Returns and Clinical Trial Results of Investigational Compounds: An Event Study Analysis of Large Biopharmaceutical Companies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-8, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0071966
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071966
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071966
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071966&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0071966?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabrizio Lillo & Salvatore Miccich� & Michele Tumminello & Jyrki Piilo & Rosario N. Mantegna, 2015. "How news affects the trading behaviour of different categories of investors in a financial market," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 213-229, February.
    2. Rebecca Toppe Shortridge, 2004. "Market Valuation of Successful versus Non-successful R&D Efforts in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(9-10), pages 1301-1325.
    3. Jana P. Fidrmuc & Marc Goergen & Luc Renneboog, 2006. "Insider Trading, News Releases, and Ownership Concentration," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2931-2973, December.
    4. Jana P. Fidrmuc & Marc Goergen & Luc Renneboog, 2006. "Insider Trading, News Releases, and Ownership Concentration," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2931-2973, December.
    5. Rebecca Toppe Shortridge, 2004. "Market Valuation of Successful versus Non‐successful R&D Efforts in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(9‐10), pages 1301-1325, November.
    6. Chan, Su Han & Martin, John D. & Kensinger, John W., 1990. "Corporate research and development expenditures and share value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 255-276, August.
    7. Ilaria Bordino & Stefano Battiston & Guido Caldarelli & Matthieu Cristelli & Antti Ukkonen & Ingmar Weber, 2012. "Web Search Queries Can Predict Stock Market Volumes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-17, July.
    8. Ryohei Hisano & Didier Sornette & Takayuki Mizuno & Takaaki Ohnishi & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2013. "High Quality Topic Extraction from Business News Explains Abnormal Financial Market Volatility," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-12, June.
    9. Armand Joulin & Augustin Lefevre & Daniel Grunberg & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2008. "Stock price jumps: news and volume play a minor role," Papers 0803.1769, arXiv.org.
    10. Campbell, Cynthia J. & Wesley, Charles E., 1993. "Measuring security price performance using daily NASDAQ returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 73-92, February.
    11. Bailey, Warren & Andrew Karolyi, G. & Salva, Carolina, 2006. "The economic consequences of increased disclosure: Evidence from international cross-listings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 175-213, July.
    12. Vega, Clara, 2006. "Stock price reaction to public and private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 103-133, October.
    13. Ryohei Hisano & Didier Sornette & Takayuki Mizuno & Takaaki Ohnishi & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2012. "High quality topic extraction from business news explains abnormal financial market volatility," Papers 1210.6321, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2013.
    14. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    15. Panattoni, Laura E., 2011. "The effect of Paragraph IV decisions and generic entry before patent expiration on brand pharmaceutical firms," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 126-145, January.
    16. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    17. Joseph E. Engelberg & Christopher A. Parsons, 2011. "The Causal Impact of Media in Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 67-97, February.
    18. Dranove, David & Olsen, Chris, 1994. "The Economic Side Effects of Dangerous Drug Announcements," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 323-348, October.
    19. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    20. Kolari, James W. & Pynnonen, Seppo, 2011. "Nonparametric rank tests for event studies," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 953-971.
    21. A. Craig MacKinlay, 1997. "Event Studies in Economics and Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 13-39, March.
    22. McQueen, Grant & Roley, V Vance, 1993. "Stock Prices, News, and Business Conditions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 683-707.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rouatbi, Wael & Demir, Ender & Kizys, Renatas & Zaremba, Adam, 2021. "Immunizing markets against the pandemic: COVID-19 vaccinations and stock volatility around the world," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Semen Budennyy & Alexey Kazakov & Elizaveta Kovtun & Leonid Zhukov, 2022. "New drugs and stock market: how to predict pharma market reaction to clinical trial announcements," Papers 2208.07248, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Takayuki Mizuno & Takaaki Ohnishi & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2015. "Novel and topical business news and their impact on stock market activities," CARF F-Series CARF-F-366, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    2. Takayuki Mizuno & Takaaki Ohnishi & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2015. "Novel and topical business news and their impact on stock market activities," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 055, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    3. Takayuki Mizuno & Takaaki Ohnishi & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2015. "Novel and topical business news and their impact on stock market activities," Papers 1507.06477, arXiv.org.
    4. Ahmad, Khurshid & Han, JingGuang & Hutson, Elaine & Kearney, Colm & Liu, Sha, 2016. "Media-expressed negative tone and firm-level stock returns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 152-172.
    5. Gabriele Ranco & Darko Aleksovski & Guido Caldarelli & Miha Grčar & Igor Mozetič, 2015. "The Effects of Twitter Sentiment on Stock Price Returns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-21, September.
    6. Laura Xiaolei Liu & Ann E. Sherman & Yong Zhang, 2014. "The Long-Run Role of the Media: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1945-1964, August.
    7. Fabrizio Lillo & Salvatore Miccich� & Michele Tumminello & Jyrki Piilo & Rosario N. Mantegna, 2015. "How news affects the trading behaviour of different categories of investors in a financial market," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 213-229, February.
    8. Yen-Ju Hsu & Yang-Cheng Lu & J. Jimmy Yang, 2021. "News sentiment and stock market volatility," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1093-1122, October.
    9. Alexander Kerl & Carolin Schürg & Andreas Walter, 2014. "The impact of Financial Times Deutschland news on stock prices: post-announcement drifts and inattention of investors," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 28(4), pages 409-436, November.
    10. Sun, Fangcheng & Dutta, Shantanu & Huang, Hui & Zhu, Pengcheng, 2021. "News media and insider trading profitability: An emerging country perspective," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    11. Rui Fan & Oleksandr Talavera & Vu Tran, 2020. "Social media bots and stock markets," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), pages 753-777, June.
    12. Ryohei Hisano & Didier Sornette & Takayuki Mizuno & Takaaki Ohnishi & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2013. "High Quality Topic Extraction from Business News Explains Abnormal Financial Market Volatility," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-12, June.
    13. Melody Y. Huang & Randall R. Rojas & Patrick D. Convery, 2020. "Forecasting stock market movements using Google Trend searches," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(6), pages 2821-2839, December.
    14. Gabriele Ranco & Ilaria Bordino & Giacomo Bormetti & Guido Caldarelli & Fabrizio Lillo & Michele Treccani, 2016. "Coupling News Sentiment with Web Browsing Data Improves Prediction of Intra-Day Price Dynamics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, January.
    15. David E. Allen & Michael McAleer & Abhay K. Singh, 2019. "Daily market news sentiment and stock prices," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(30), pages 3212-3235, June.
    16. Goldman, Eitan & Martel, Jordan & Schneemeier, Jan, 2022. "A theory of financial media," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 239-258.
    17. Ding, Rong & Hou, Wenxuan & Liu, Yue (Lucy) & Zhang, John Ziyang, 2018. "Media censorship and stock price: Evidence from the foreign share discount in China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 112-133.
    18. Piñeiro-Chousa, Juan & López-Cabarcos, M.Ángeles & Ribeiro-Soriano, Domingo, 2020. "Does investor attention influence water companies’ stock returns?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    19. Kaniel, Ron & Parham, Robert, 2017. "WSJ Category Kings – The impact of media attention on consumer and mutual fund investment decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 337-356.
    20. Cai, Wenwu & Lu, Jing, 2019. "Investors’ financial attention frequency and trading activity," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0071966. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.