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 Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY). Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) is a pharmaceutical company, headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The one-month return of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) was 13.69%, and its shares gained 14.92% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 18, 2025, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) stock closed at $857.20 per share with a market capitalization of $801.48 billion.
Baron Health Care Fund stated the following regarding Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) is a global pharmaceutical company best known for developing and selling GLP-1 medications for diabetes and obesity. Shares detracted from performance as recent GLP-1 revenue results missed heightened expectations. We view Lilly’s Mounjaro/Zepbound GLP-1/GIP drug as an important treatment for diabetic and non-diabetic obese patients and see Lilly continuing to innovate and develop more effective and convenient next-generation medications. Although manufacturing supply and access is limited in the near term, we think this class of drug should be the standard of care for both diabetes and obesity and will become a $150 billion category. We think the recent revenue miss related to the mistiming of demand-generation activities with supply increases and elevated investor expectations after a very strong result in the prior quarter. We think this market is in the early innings of uptake and the adoption of GLP-1s will triple Lilly’s total revenues by 2030.”
An array of pharmaceutical pills with the company’s logo on the bottle.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) is in 21st position on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 106 hedge fund portfolios held Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) at the end of the third quarter which was 100 in the previous quarter. In 2024, Eli Lilly and Company’s (NYSE:LLY) revenue increased 32% compared to 2023, exceeding guidance by approximately $4 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article we discussed Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) and shared the list of best drug stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2024 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.