Bianca Ogden: This is a new biotech boom
Platinum Asset Management's biotech specialist Dr Bianca Ogden outlines the major opportunities she is seeing in the sector.
Note: This interview was recorded on Wednesday 30 October 2024.
While the rest of the market may be focusing its attention on the world's major tech giants, health sciences companies are quietly emerging from a "biotech winter", after sluggishly underperforming the MSCI World benchmark since the COVID-19 crash in early 2020.
That's according to Dr Bianca Ogden, the jewel in Platinum Asset Management's biotech crown, who believes that we are now entering into a new biotech boom, with major innovations taking place in everything from drug discovery, oncology, immunotherapy, gene editing and neurodegenerative diseases.
It also helps that, now, with interest rates headed southward, the environment for funding has improved - with successful capital raises starting to gather momentum in companies with impressive clinical data and products. It's a healthier market today than it was in 2021, for example, when any project could get funding - which means that the companies that can raise capital are those that are more likely to mature.
Artificial intelligence (AI), the buzzword of 2024, has changed the game once again - with the technology being used by biotechs and health sciences companies to cut down time and cost. Quality data is key, however, and not all companies are created equal when it comes to their use of AI.
That said, investing in biotech and health sciences is far from easy - and requires a lot of patience from investors, Dr Ogden says. Above all, she believes that the best cheat investors can have when analysing these businesses is to focus on a company's leaders rather than its spreadsheets.
"There's the science, and there's the people... I underestimated, early on in my career, that the science was all of it. But its actually what the leaders do with that science and how they translate it that really makes a difference," Dr Ogden says.
In this wide-spanning Views from the Top interview, Dr Ogden takes investors through some of the major innovations she is seeing within health sciences today and outlines how she identifies the businesses that make their way into her portfolio.
She also names some of the red flags that investors need to look out for when investing in health sciences businesses, some of the companies that are making strides on the global stage, as well as why she believes the health sector in Australia is "inefficient" and "frustrating" - and what would need to happen for that to change.
Timecodes
- 0:00 - Intro
- 0:42 - Dr Bianca Ogden's background - PhD in virology, and working for two major pharmaceutical companies in Novartis and Johnson & Johnson
- 1:41 - COVID-19 - what we've learnt and an obsession with biotech
- 3:03 - How she identifies opportunities
- 4:22 - Health sciences life cycles and why the best risk-reward typically is early
- 6:52 - A new funding environment as interest rates head south
- 8:09 - Why investors need to focus on the leaders behind a business
- 9:26 - Red flags to look out for
- 11:00 - How AI is transforming health sciences
- 13:59 - Where we are tracking in the race to end cancer and positive steps taking place
- 16:32 - Companies Dr Ogden is liking right now in this space
- 19:12 - Companies tackling neurodegenerative diseases
- 19:54 - An ASX-listed company Dr Ogden recently added to the portfolio
- 21:48 - Why the Aussie healthcare market is "frustrating"
- 23:43 - Dr Ogden's unique "view from the top"
You can learn more about Dr Bianca Ogden's International Health Sciences Fund but visiting the Platinum Asset Management website, or the fund profile below.
Managed Fund
Platinum International Health Sciences Fund
Global Shares
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Ally Selby is the deputy managing editor at Livewire Markets, joining the team at the end of 2020. She loves all things investing, financial literacy and content creation, having previously worked for the likes of Financial Standard, Pedestrian Group, Your Money, Sky Business and Sky News.
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Ally Selby is the deputy managing editor at Livewire Markets, joining the team at the end of 2020. She loves all things investing, financial literacy and content creation, having previously worked for the likes of Financial Standard, Pedestrian...
Expertise
Ally Selby is the deputy managing editor at Livewire Markets, joining the team at the end of 2020. She loves all things investing, financial literacy and content creation, having previously worked for the likes of Financial Standard, Pedestrian...
Expertise
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