Trevor Polischuk, lead manager at the Worldwide Healthcare Trust, names three healthcare companies worth considering.
For healthcare-stock investors, Worldwide Healthcare Trust offers a single, focused portfolio. Its team brings experience from academia and industry, along with scientific and healthcare training. Rather than starting with broad market themes, we select stocks from the ground up, concentrating on innovation and growth to build a collection of our "best ideas."
Three healthcare stocks to consider
Over the past two decades, few drug classes have changed human health as much as the GLP-1s. Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) spent years developing tirzepatide, a metabolic medicine now sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound. It delivers best-in-class weight loss and blood-sugar control, but those results are only part of the story. The bigger opportunity may come from its wider health effects: relief from cardiovascular, kidney and liver disease, sleep apnea, and arthritic pain. Researchers are also examining possible benefits for cognition, mood disorders, addiction, cancer, inflammatory disorders, and disease prevention.
Eli Lilly continues to push this work forward with newly launched oral treatments and next-generation injectables, including retatrutide, which should improve efficacy, and eloralintide, which is expected to be better tolerated. A new class of "super medicines" may be emerging - drugs designed to treat and prevent disease while easing the effects of ageing and supporting longer life.
Bayer (Frankfurt: BAYN) is still widely associated with aspirin, yet investors have spent years focused on the legal battles tied to Roundup, its glyphosate-based weedkiller. That attention may be hiding how much the company's underlying operations have changed. Its pharmaceutical business is moving into a fresh growth phase, supported by strong demand for Nubeqa (darolutamide) in prostate cancer and Kerendia (finerenone) for kidney disease. Asundexian, the leading drug candidate in Bayer's pipeline, reduced the risk of recurrent stroke by 26% among at-risk patients and is now being reviewed by regulators. Bayer also runs one of the world's largest agricultural businesses, with more new products in development. The Roundup litigation may finally be nearing a settlement, which could remove much of the uncertainty that has pressured the shares for years.
CareDx (Nasdaq: CDNA) is moving beyond its transplant-diagnostics roots and building a broader precision-medicine platform with high growth potential. At the center is AlloSure, the leading donor-derived cell-free DNA test for monitoring organ-transplant patients. More clinicians are adopting it, and testing volumes continue to rise. The results are already showing: second-quarter revenue increased by more than 50%, while earnings climbed over 500%.
CareDx is applying its experience in highly sensitive molecular diagnostics to a new area. Through its acquisition of Naveris, the company gained NavDx, a blood test for viral-mediated cancers. Management estimates that this specialty oncology market could reach £5 billion. Organic growth is picking up, margins are widening, and the company has added opportunities in oncology and cell therapy while simplifying its portfolio through the sale of its Lab Products business. Taken together, those changes suggest CareDx may be entering a period of sustained revenue and earnings growth.
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