Stockholm (NordSIP) – Since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare has become one of the dominating themes in sustainable finance. The pressure of the pandemic combined with pre-existent demographic pressures and income growth to create demand and opportunities for healthcare investments.
Responding to these incentives, American Century Investments and Nomura Asset Management announced that the American Century Advanced Medical Impact UCITS, a sub-fund of Nomura Funds Ireland Plc, is available to European investors. Co-Portfolio Managers Michael Li and Henry He from American Century Investments will be in charge of the fund.
The new Dublin-based UCITS fund aims to actively invest in 30 to 50 innovative global health care companies positioned for sustained above-average growth. Looking to generate meaningful social impact by addressing unmet medical needs, the portfolio is aligned with the UN’s third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-3) to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.”
“The global pandemic has underscored the need for quality health care. There are approximately 600 million people worldwide age 65 years and over, so there’s a rising demand for health care services, as well as increasing wealth levels in developing countries such as China and India in particular, to access quality care,” says Michael Li. “This will place significant stress on health care systems, so we need to invest in infrastructure and capacity. However, innovations leading to new treatments and improvement in access, cost, and productivity will be a primary means to address the issue. The new UCITS invests in important health care innovations that we believe will have a positive impact on society.”
The fund uses a proprietary multi-factor model and other sources such as medical conferences to identify investment candidates exposed to sustainable growth opportunities and future profitability trends while evaluating ESG risks. Each stock in the portfolio must be tied to at least one impact theme connected with SDG-3, be it innovative treatments, increased access to health care, new low-cost solutions or improved equipment.
“The Advanced Medical Impact Fund will be our latest UCITs collaboration with our strategic partner American Century,” adds Peter Ball, Managing Director and Head of EMEA Distribution at Nomura Asset Management. “Although the uncertain outlook and spiking volatility has challenged financial markets, the current environment strengthens the case for active management through the managers’ ability to identify potential winners in the coronavirus crisis and mitigate downside risk.”
