Customer Reviews

Healthcare Investing: Profiting from the New World of Pharma, Biotech, and Health Care Services (McGraw-Hill Finance & Investing)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Healthcare is such a dynamic field with so much complexity and change that even a seasoned expert must constantly amass new knowledge. As a finance professional who previously worked as a healthcare sector analyst at a prominent Wall Street investment bank, I obtained this book with the goal of complementing my understanding and hopefully, finding some new investment ideas.

Les Funtleyder takes on a rather daunting task: explain everything there is to know about investing in healthcare within a brief 259 pages. I have mixed feelings about his success in accomplishing this goal. While this book has plenty of merit, its good points are countered by some whopping downsides.

The Strengths:
Most healthcare literature is purely about political, administrative, or moral dilemmas, but few sources are purely directed at investment as this. I like the unique, business-minded approach this book takes. The front end of is loaded with facts and statistics relevant to this country's health care crisis. Les does a fair job educating the reader on healthcare's current systemic challenges, and outlines the big game played between the ill, providers of treatment, and the private and governmental insurers. Overall he does a terrific job presenting a great deal of topics in laymen's terms, avoiding most of the technical jargon used in the field. Furthermore, this book is thoroughly researched with an excellent bibliography for further reading. A professional like myself would probably be compelled to look up a few of those sources.

The Weaknesses:
The biggest downside of this book is that it does not have the guts to name names - it does not mention specific companies! By failing to talk about specific players in the industry, a healthcare "investing" book, is somewhat self-defeating. I am not sure if this is due to legal reasons or to keep the book from getting dated too soon. Whatever the reason, this insufficiency reduces most of the book's discussion to generalized conjecture of "what-if" scenarios in the market.

With such breadth covered, this book also can't do justice to every subtopic. Understanding specifics is the key to success in a game like healthcare investing, but the book fails in this regard. In many cases, the beneficiaries of certain movements are not clear because there are so few pure plays in healthcare. For example, the book gives a generalized rundown on the future of personalized medicine. One of the major players I know of in personalized medicine is Medco Health Solutions (not mentioned specifically in the book), but pharmagenomics comprises only a small slice of their business with a questionable bottom line impact.

Finally, to whom is this writing directed? I could not tell if Les is targeting retail investors or investment professionals. It feels that his audience lies in some sort of limbo between the two categories. Not good.

Conclusion: I only rate this book two stars because although I found it useful for plugging a few holes in my warehouse of knowledge, its shortcomings override its practical benefits.

This book is incredibly well written and insightful. The world of healthcare investing is extremely dynamic with all the political developments happening right now - many of the old books seem archaic. Funtleyder's take on the sector is the most recent so it seems like the only relevant book out there. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to gain a fresh perspective on what's going on politically and how that will affect the healthcare sector as it pertains to investment. Funtleyder is also incredibly eloquent, so it's a pleasure to read!

As President Obama is trying to reform health care, there is no better time to familiarize ourselves with investment opportunities in the health care sector. The uncertainty about the future of health care reform makes many investors stay away from this sector. But for the courageous ones, there is a tremendous opportunity to make money. In the end, demand for health care products and services keeps growing. The author does a great job describing to readers how the reform could create investment opportunities and in which subsector of the health care industry these opportunities exist. I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in investing in health care stocks.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

I first discovered this book while reviewing the CFA's website - clearly if they recommended it, the book must have it's merits. After reading this book, I'm convinced that it's a must-have for any serious investor. With all the impending health care legislation, the sector can be quite daunting - this book captures the big picture, and provides the reader with the necessary toolkit to make money in this environment.

I look forward to the author's next book.

"This is a must read! Les has a perspective on healthcare and policy far beyond the scope of the average healthcare analyst looking at quarter earnings estimates...

He makes sense of the complexities of healthcare to non-healthcare practicioners and makes clear what you should understand about healthcare investing.

He gets it...."