RFK Jr effect sends alternative medicine stocks soaring

The company, which is based in Hong Kong, registered in the Cayman Islands and listed on the Nasdaq, has seen an almost 60,000% share price increase this year.

Last week, a stock split helped push its market capitalisation to more than $31bn, placing it ahead of companies such as Ryanair, the budget airline, and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp.

There are questions over how Regencell – whose leading product is an oral formula to treat conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism – has attracted such interest. It has yet to turn a profit and reported net losses of $4.36m and $6.06m in the fiscal years 2024 and 2023.

One potential reason is that only a small percentage of the company’s shares are available to investors. Out of 500m shares, just 30m are available for public trading, which alone will not increase the price but can lead to larger swings. It is also gaining traction as a “meme stock”, with users on Reddit speculating over whether they “should pull out before a crash”.

Another diagnosis is that alternative medicine is in vogue, not least among acolytes of Donald Trump. The US president’s secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has vowed to “end the war” on alternative medicine and recently fired his entire advisory committee on immunisation practices, a panel that shapes US vaccine policies.

Since Kennedy’s nomination, more traditional pharmaceutical companies have been suffering. Moderna, which developed a Covid vaccine, and Merck, are down 80% and 40% year-to-date respectively.

Deregulation of supplements in the US in the 1990s made the industry more profitable. A combination of this, the rise of wellness influencers and a lack of doctors – Mississippi is said to have fewer doctors per head than Kazakhstan – has created ripe conditions for complementary and alternative medication to take hold across the US.

Photograph by Samuel Corum/Getty Images