Healthcare is ‘more than CSL’
The recent focus on healthcare and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought attention to the lesser-covered sector of healthcare funds, a boost for Platinum fund manager, and winner of this year’s Money Management Best-performing Fund With a Woman in a Leadership Role award, Bianca Ogden.
After a PhD in virology in London, Ogden worked in scientific research at US pharma giant Johnson & Johnson but heard about funds management at a conference and decided to explore that area.
Starting out as an investment analyst in 2003, Ogden originally planned to stay in the industry for just one year and said she did not still to expect to be in the sector.
The $354 million Platinum International Healthcare fund was launched in 2007 and her scientific background made her ideal as lead manager.
“I already regretted the career change after six months but it got better and I understood more, I didn’t expect to be still here but I like the variety of the job,” she said.
“Platinum felt that healthcare would be important for the future and we have done well from themes like diagnostics and we hope they will continue to play out in the next decade.
“People have knowledge about technology but not about healthcare, it is not inferior to technology, it is a different beast and the pandemic has helped people to realise that. It is about much more than CSL.”
She said her scientific background and experience differentiated her from her colleagues and gave her an outside perspective.
“It helps as I have real-life experience, I haven’t only worked in fund management. As a scientist, most experiments fail so I am used to failures and analysing them for what went wrong. There is significant strength in being able to see things like that.”
When it came to being a women in funds management, Ogden admitted that little had changed in her 17 years in the industry and that she had always worked in a male-dominated team.
At Platinum, she is the only female fund manager out of nine and there were a further two female analysts.
“I haven’t noticed any changes since I started, it is a very male-dominated industry but you have to stand your ground and I have learnt to deal with it. It is harder for new people coming in and we don’t get many female applicants.
“After the first six weeks in the job, the men were surprised I was still there!”
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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