Five Healthcare Stocks Hedge Funds Are Bullish On

Then there is Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), a company that caused a lot of pain to many top investors that rank among its shareholders. During the fourth quarter, the number of funds with long positions in Valeant slid to 83 from 88 and the aggregate value of their positions dropped to $12.56 billion from $17.73 billion and represented 36.20% of the company at the end of December. The stock has slumped by more than 58% since the end of September, amid a series of events involving the company’s drug-pricing policies, financials, and management changes, among others. Recently, Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) has announced the return of its CEO Michael Pearson from medical leave and said it would delay filing its latest financial statements, alongside having withdrawn its guidance. However, top investors in the company, such as Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, consider that the market has overreacted to the recent problems surrounding Valeant and the stock is likely to rebound since the company’s core business remains strong. Pershing Square holds 16.59 million shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) as of the end of December, which makes it one of the largest shareholders of the company.

The biotech has been the most affected among the industries in the healthcare sector since the beginning of 2016 and Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) is no exception as its stock has dropped by 13%. However, among the funds in our database, the number of investors long the stock inched down by one to 89, while the aggregate value of their holdings fell to $4.51 billion from $4.76 billion during the last three months of 2015. Among others, billionaire David E. Shaw‘s D. E. Shaw reported holding 4.52 million shares of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) in its latest 13F filing (down by 27% on the quarter), while Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors raised its exposure by 57% to 3.42 million shares. Gilead remains to be one of the top biotech picks among both investors and analysts, mainly due to its leading hepatitis C drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi, but the competition from other producers is catching up. However, Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) has other products in its pipeline, such as its experimental cocktail of emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide for the treatment of HIV, which has recently received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency and is awaiting approval from the US FDA.