As biotech stocks across Massachusetts plunged yesterday for the sixth straight day, health care investors instead put their money into a local company that makes small, fast-acting diagnostic devices to test for disease.
Waltham-based Alere (NYSE: ALR), one of the state’s biggest medical device companies, was the biggest winner to emerge from what was otherwise a bloodbath on the first day of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell 3.4 percent yesterday, bringing the total loss for the sector since Jan. 1 to almost 14 percent.
