Navigating an unpredictable Administration

It was a sound bite that reverberated through the drug industry. On Jan. 11, in his first news conference as president-elect, Donald J. Trump castigated pharmaceutical companies as “getting away with murder.” In the next breath, he vowed to shake up how the government paid for drugs. Those 29 seconds of commentary sent the biotech stock index down 3%. It would become just one of many off-the-cuff remarks directed at the pharmaceutical industry in Trump’s first year in office. The price negotiation threat has so far turned out to lack teeth. But the general uncertainty around key issues in the Trump agenda—the fate of health care reform, corporate tax reform, even the ability to bring talented foreign scientists to the U.S.—has left companies and investors on edge. For investors, the uncertainty wrought by Trump poses a challenge. “In a world where an Administration is more unpredictable, that’s a net negative