European Life Sciences Guide - The Winning Combination
7 January 2016, 08:13
Our Life Sciences/Healthcare Favourites List rose 111.36% in 2015, outperforming the relevant indices: NBI by 99.59%, MSCI World Health Index by 104.27%, MSCI Europe Healthcare Index by 107.5%, and the Kempen LifeSciences Index by 70.85%. As H1’15 was exceptionally strong, we decided to go “risk-off” in H2’15, despite a European macro backdrop of “risk-on” due to QE and a weak Euro. Our strategy served us well as our Favourites added another 8.55% in H2’15, beating the NBI by 23.36%, MSCI Europe Healthcare by 17.44% and MSCI World Healthcare Index by 15.5%.
Looking ahead to 2016, the days of easy money appear to be over. After 4 years of bull markets in Life Sciences, the number of cross-over rounds, an indicator of investor optimism regarding public markets in the near term, have dropped significantly. The outlook for 2016 warns for volatility where the market is expected to trade sideways. We have used various approaches in the past for our Favourites List selection, such as: (i) long into clinical data events, (ii) long into the signing of pharma partnerships post-data, (iii) long into the mis-pricing of a deal that has already been signed, and (iv) simply cheap on cash/market cap and/or underdog for the last 12 months. The second half of 2015 saw fatigue in US Life Sciences, where stocks did not move after positive data points and/or the risk-reward changed faster than expected around certain events. With signals pointing in divergent directions, both macro and within our Life Sciences sector, our approach for 2016 is to create a basket using a combination of strategies applied in the past.
Our 2016 Favourites List comprises four names, which fit the above-mentioned basket approach: (i) Ablynx (clinical event), (ii) Galapagos (pharma deal mis-priced), (iii) Genmab (clinical event, and growth), and (iv) MorphoSys (cheap, underdog). We believe a basket of these names should allow us to beat market volatility and contribute absolute performance.