Stocks related to Alzheimer‘s disease remained high despite a slide in the main bourse index Monday, on the back of President Moon Jae-in’s fresh policy initiative to invest some 2 trillion won ($1.78 billion) in supporting Alzheimer‘s patients.

Moon last week vowed to install more state-run clinics for dementia treatment, increase personnel to look after the patients and widen medical coverage offered by the state.

In South Korea, some 725,000, or 1 in 10 elderly people, suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare earlier this year.

Shares of local drugmakers for the treatment of cerebral damage or diseases soared over the past week accordingly.

Myungmoon Pharm., on the first-tier stock market, on Monday maintained its buoyance, despite the downturn of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index by 1 percent. It closed at 7,230 won on Monday, up 5.09 percent from Friday.

The pharmaceutical company which produces drugs for dementia treatment such as Emantine and Ceptpesil hit the price ceiling on June 5 at 6,950 won, after it closed at 5,350 won the previous trading day on June 2. The price had hovered at around 5,000 won for nearly nine months.

Korean Drug, listed on the second-tier market, closed at 8,630 won, up 5.5 percent from Friday’s close. In the previous week, the maker of Neuromed jumped 24.6 percent to close at 8,700 won.

Not all dementia treatment-related stocks were up. Other pharmaceutical shares took losses in sync with the benchmark indexes Monday.

The Kosdaq-listed SeouLin Bioscience, which won a bid for a state-sponsored project seeking early diagnoses of dementia, closed at 14,050 won, down 2.43 percent from Friday. Still, compared to June 1, the stock had risen 6.04 percent.

Kosdaq stock Medifron DBT shed 1.01 percent to 5,860 won at Monday’s close, though it was still up 27.1 percent from June 1.

With offshore investors and institutional investors’ exodus from the market, the Kospi tumbled 1 percent to close at 2,357.87, while the Kosdaq dropped 1.38 percent to 664.86 on Monday. The top-tier Kospi had topped 2,380 for the first time in its history Friday closing, at 2,381.69.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)