Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Health Care Fund” second quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund advanced 9.22% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter compared to a 3.44% gain for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index (benchmark) and an 8.74% gain for the S&P 500 Index. Since its inception, on April 30, 2018, the fund gained 13.58% on an annualized basis, compared to the benchmark’s 10.85% gain and the S&P 500 Index’s 12.54% return. Favorable stock selection led the fund to outperform in the quarter. Investments in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare equipment accounted for most of the relative gains of the fund in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Health Care Fund highlighted stocks like Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) provides cancer screening and diagnostic test products. On July 24, 2023, Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) stock closed at $93.84 per share. One-month return of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) was 0.09%, and its shares gained 105.65% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) has a market capitalization of $16.936 billion.
Baron Health Care Fund made the following comment about Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
“We added to our position in Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS), a cancer diagnostics company whose flagship product is Cologuard, a stool-based DNA colon cancer screening test. We wrote about Exact Sciences in the first quarter. The company’s core Cologuard business has strong momentum, as confirmed by the company’s recent first quarter financial results. Exact also demonstrated better-than-expected profitability, and management accelerated its timeline to be free cash flow positive to 2023, one year ahead of schedule. The company recently announced that its next generation Cologuard test demonstrated improved sensitivity and specificity for colorectal cancer compared with the first-generation Cologuard test. Once approved and commercialized, the second-generation Cologuard test should result in lower false positives, which should benefit Exact by boosting its gross margins. We continue to believe Exact has a long runway for growth in the Cologuard business. In addition, we think Exact’s initiatives in minimal residual disease testing and multi-cancer early detection represent significant optionality.”
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 38 hedge fund portfolios held Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) at the end of first quarter which was 39 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) in another article and shared the list of best booming stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2023 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
