VRTX - Janus Henderson Global Life Sciences Fund Q4 2024 Commentary
2025-02-12 20:40:00 ET
Summary
- The Fund returned -11.16% and the MSCI World Health Care IndexSM returned -11.40%.
- Stock selection in healthcare equipment contributed to relative returns, while positioning in pharmaceuticals weighed on performance.
- Near-term policy uncertainty has weighed on valuations, making the sector’s accelerating innovation and strong demand dynamics even more attractive.
Investment environment
Healthcare stocks underperformed the broader market, with most subsectors dragged lower by the controversial nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services ('HHS'). Healthcare services were further pressured by President-elect Donald Trump’s call to eliminate pharmacy benefit managers owned by insurers and the tragic killing of UnitedHealthcare’s ( UNH ) CEO. A pickup in Treasury yields made long-duration assets such as biotech less attractive to investors. Clinical trial setbacks also caused sentiment toward biopharma to sour, including AbbVie’s ( ABBV ) closely watched schizophrenia therapy, which failed to outperform a placebo in two phase 3 trials. Novo Nordisk’s ( NVO ) new obesity therapy, CagriSema, also fell short of expectations for weight loss, and Vertex’s ( VRTX ) novel pain therapy failed in a mid-stage study for lower back and leg pain. Even so, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) closed out the year with several drug approvals, including Crenessity, a novel approach to lowering the need for high-dose steroid therapy in patients with classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia ('CAH'). Other approvals included Bizengri for the treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, Unloxcyt for advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and Alyftrek for the treatment of specific mutations of cystic fibrosis....
Janus Henderson Global Life Sciences Fund Q4 2024 Commentary