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 Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Hellerup, Denmark, Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) is a biopharmaceutical company. On July 24, 2023, Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) stock closed at $86.50 per share. One-month return of Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) was -0.12%, and its shares lost 0.60% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) has a market capitalization of $4.863 billion.
Baron Health Care Fund made the following comment about Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) is a biotechnology company dedicated to creating long-acting versions of various short-acting proteins or efficacious drugs where the long-acting version provides pharmacology benefits, including improved recapitulation of the drug’s physiologic behavior, longer half-life, improved bioavailability, and lower maximum concentration to blunt side effects, as well as patient convenience, such as weekly versus daily shots. Initial efforts have focused on growth hormone and parathyroid hormone replacement drugs. Shares fell in response to an unexpected FDA issue weeks before the expected approval of Transcon PTH, Ascendis’ drug for hypoparathyroidism. Approval of Transcon PTH was delayed, which sent shares down substantially for the period held. We sold our shares to harvest a tax loss.”
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 26 hedge fund portfolios held Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) at the end of first quarter which was 33 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND) in another article and shared the list of growth stocks in biotech. 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.
