Healthcare stocks rose late Thursday afternoon, with the NYSE Healthcare Index rising 1.4% and the State Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV) adding 1.5%.
The iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB) climbed 1.5%.
In corporate news, Eli Lilly's (LLY) weight-loss drugs secured coverage from the three largest US pharmacy benefit managers, the drugmaker said Thursday. Lilly shares gained 4.3%.
Agilent Technologies (A) stock jumped 18% after the company posted higher fiscal Q2 adjusted earnings and revenue, and raised its fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS guidance.
Illumina (ILMN) shares climbed 5% after it said it launched a whole-genome sequencing research workflow for molecular residual disease detection.
AstraZeneca's (AZN) durvalumab, plus Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, received approval by the Food and Drug Administration to treat adults with BCG-naive, high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, the FDA said Thursday. AstraZeneca shares rose 0.2%.