Ebola outbreak sees pharma company Tekmira shares soar over drug hopes
As the fear of Ebola spreads, shares in one pharmaceutical company rose over 15 per cent in early trading.
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: TKMR) saw its shares rocket on reports the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is willing to work with companies to develop treatments for Ebola.
Tekmira had been trialling an Ebola drug in June when the tests were put on hold by the FDA, which required clarification on some esoteric details.
Reuters noted that the 'hold' status of the trial doesn't stop Tekmira proposing a new set of tests on the drug, and the markets are clearly optimistic.
While the drug, TKM-Ebola, had reached the human testing stage it was still some way from finishing its path to production.
Although it is not unheard of for experimental drugs to be rushed into use during epidemics, in the past those drugs have been further along in their development.
Shares in Tekmira were up 15.1 per cent at pixel time.