Stocks, perhaps numbed, hang on

Biotechnology stocks shrugged off reports on Friday that the Clinton health care plan would review prices of new prescription drugs, deny Medicare coverage to those considered to be overpriced, and require drug companies to discount all drugs reimbursed by Medicare by at least 15 percent.

The BioCentury 100 was off 1 percent last week after having climbed 10 percent in the three previous weeks. In fact, profit-taking earlier in the week had driven the price level down almost 3 percent before shares staged a rebound...