Tel Aviv — Warren Buffett stoked hopes of a transformation at the world’s biggest generic drug maker as his Berkshire Hathaway became a top shareholder weeks after pledging to cut soaring US healthcare costs. Shares of the drug maker, Israel’s troubled Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, surged the most in two months after Berkshire disclosed it had bought about $350m worth of stock. Teva is working on a turnaround after getting bruised by the recent slump in US generics prices. It supplies one in six copycat medicines used by Americans, and its ability to develop cheaper copies of complex treatments could play a role in an ambitious effort to lower healthcare costs announced last month by Berkshire, Amazon.com and JPMorgan Chase. "Drug costs continue to escalate, Trump is all over prices, and Teva, along with the rest of the generics industry, is part of the solution," Elliot Wilbur, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates, wrote in a note to clients that sought to describe "the 30,00...
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