Stock Watch: 2022 Starts Badly For Biotech

The New Year often brings out the optimist in investors, especially in health care, where the build-up to the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco includes pre-announcements of the previous year’s financial performance and the much-anticipated product licensing and merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions. So far, 2022 feels very different to previous years, not only because the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has kept the conference virtual, but also because the performance of biotechnology stocks in 2021 is hanging like a specter over 2022.

Some argue that developed nations have emerged from the acute crisis and are now living with SARS-CoV-19 rather than being...