Jack Scannell, research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, told CNBC, "if you are a macro bull you wouldn't want to earn drug stocks, if you are a macro bear you would. The second half of 2011 was a very good time for drug stocks, not because the fundamentals of the pharmaceutical sector were getting better, but because they bottomed out, expectations were low, dividends yields were 4 to 5 percent and medium term earnings were highly predictable.