22 Comments
 

I'm going to second what @TheBrofessor said. You can't distill Health Care (arguably the most complicated and interconnected sector to break down into a "For Dummies" book) into just a quick overview. Give some guidance as to what you are looking for (from Medical Devices to REIT Structure to Admin Overview to Pharma etc. etc. etc.) and we can give you a little more guidance. Broad stroke questions like this are always hard to answer because explaining Medical Devices will always be different than explaining Biotech or Pharma and they don't necessarily have the same relationship to each other because of the vast space that is Health Care. So dial in your question and come back to us so we can better help.

 
Best Response

maybe he doesn't know all of the main parts of healthcare. I'll attempt to do a short list but others please fill in the gaps:

hospitals: healthcare REITs other facilities: clinics, hospice, long term care facilities, etc, insurance: companies like UNH, AET retail: WAG, CVS, and to some extent TGT, WMT medical device: SYK, COV, etc. this can range from lab/hospital equipment to diagnostics, to prosthetics, etc. biopharma: specifically talking about molecule development, companies like BIIB, they develop molecules that hopefully become drugs big pharma: MRK, PFE, BDX, JNJ (I hesitate calling JNJ big pharma, they're like big pharma with a conglomerate twist) they own molecules (usually) and market/distribute the drugs contract research: Q, INC Research, PPD; these companies take the drugs through the various clinical trials until it is ready to go to market medical technology: Allscripts Obamacare: short the 10 year

one could argue that stuff like HFL and WTW should be in here, but I wouldn't consider those healthcare, more consumer discretionary, less affected by regulation, patient pools, and reimbursement laws that the above.

so big picture: a company like Biogen develops a molecule that cures feline herpes, AstraZeneca buys it, Quintiles tests it, Astra markets it, Walgreens sells it to you for your whore Maine coon, and UnitedHealth reimburses you assuming you paid your premium.

obviously oversimplified with some sarcasm in there, but I think that's pretty well rounded.

 

Well, I disagree with you on JNJ. JNJ is Big Pharma, Medical Devices, Medical Tech and Research rolled into one. They have that far reaching scope and power. Considering they own 142 Medical Device Subsidiaries on top of their Pharma divisions, I think JNJ fits into multiple roles. Likewise, I don't consider BDX to be big pharma as much as I would medical devices and disposables with a Pharma component.

That said, I think Medical Technology could be expanded a bit more into Medical Tech and Medical IT (Think HIPPA compliance, ERM systems, and the like), but you've covered the sector pretty well for an overview. I think it definitely shows how massive the healthcare world really is and how interconnected things are. Then again, you're also talking an industry that has had two major medical device mergers in 3 years (JNJ/Depuy Spine's acquisition of Synthese and Zimmer Holdings buyout of Biomet) and has MRK seeing significant potential with their new Anti-PD1 drug (so much potential that it's in breakthrough status and their Trial data is being submitted on a rolling basis as opposed to a post-Trial basis) that even when simplified, it still has hundreds of questions that can be asked about even the basic level of how things work.

 
 

Commenters are right....you definitely need to be more specific.

The fierce sites aren't great, but they're pretty focused. Fiercepharma Fiercebiotech Etc....

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

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