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Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Health Care Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. The Fund performed roughly in line with the Benchmark, during a challenging quarter for the larger health care industry. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund declined 9.58% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter compared to a 9.75% decline for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index (benchmark) and a 2.63% gain for the Russell 3000 Index (the Index). For the full year 2024, the fund appreciated 1.55% compared to 3.48% and 23.81% gains for the indexes. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Baron Health Care Fund emphasized stocks such as Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ:INSM). Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ:INSM) is a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutic products for patients with serious and rare diseases. The one-month return of Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ:INSM) was 3.71%, and its shares gained 188.10% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 18, 2025, Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ:INSM) stock closed at $81.36 per share with a market capitalization of $14.556 billion.
Baron Health Care Fund stated the following regarding Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ:INSM) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
"We added to the position in Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ:INSM), a biopharmaceutical company with three lead drugs that we believe could collectively generate over $8 billion of peak sales. The company expects to launch Brensocatib for non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (NCFBE) in 2025. In a Phase 3 clinical trial, the drug achieved a 20% reduction in pulmonary exacerbations and an improvement in lung function. We think there could be as many as 500,000 NCFBE patients in the U.S. and that the disease is widely underdiagnosed (or rather, mis-diagnosed as asthma/COPD) given there are no approved treatments. In addition, brensocatib is a pipeline in a product. It’s a DPP1 inhibitor that is very potent against neutrophil serine proteases. Neutrophil serine protease activity is key in the cycle of inflammation and lung damage in bronchiectasis and is also known to play an important role in chronic rhinosinusitis without nasal polyps. In addition, another drug, Arikayce is on-market to treat refractory MAC lung disease and will likely get a front-line label with Phase 3 data expected in 2025. A third drug candidate, TPIP, is in the early stage but shows impressive efficacy/safety in PAH/PH-ILD and could be a best-in-class option."