Feeling Better

Drug stocks have lagged the market in 1999, but the shares got a big lift Friday in the wake of the House’s passage of HMO-patient protection legislation that could help consumers demand more prescription-drug coverage from insurers. A sampling:

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Company (ticker) Fri close Fri change % gain Abbott Labs (ABT) 40.81, +2.38 +7.8% Schering-Plough (SGP) 49.81, +2.69 +5.7 Warner-Lambert (WLA) 73.50, +3.56 +5.1 Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 98.38, +4.50 +4.8 Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) 75.94, +2.94 +4.0 Merck (MRK) 73.75, +2.88 +4.1 Eli Lilly (LLY) 73.44, +2.75 +3.9 S&P; 500 index 1,336.02, 18.38 +1.4

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Source: Bloomberg News