Dr Bianca Ogden: The healthcare insider

The traditional path into funds management usually goes something like this. Study a bachelor of commerce or economics, pass three rounds of exams to become a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), and then get a job as one. 

But there's another way - a path less trodden.  

You grow up with a love for the health sciences, do a PhD in virology in London, and then take roles in drug development at Novartis and Johnson & Johnson. 

Then, upon realising that drug development doesn't happen without investment, you jump the fence into funds management - as a sector insider. 

That's the heavily truncated experience of Dr Bianca Ogden, portfolio manager of the International Healthcare Fund at Platinum Asset Management. 

By her own admission: "I'm not your typical fund manager."

In conjunction with International Women's Day, Livewire reached out to some trailblazing female fund managers. In this wire, Ogden charts the course of her career, her investment philosophy, her outlook for the Biotech sector, and the reasons and remedies for gender inequality within the finance sector. 

Ogden's profile:

• Firm: Platinum Asset Management
• Years in the industry: 20 years
• Specialty: Global health sciences
• Biggest personal portfolio holding: Immunovant (NASDAQ: IMVT)
• One thing very few people know about you: Ogden's first pet a guinea pig was called Nick, the same as her husband.
• Your guilty secret TV or reading pleasure: Currently watching Drive to Survive, and love everything Yellowstone related. FC Bayern: She also likes the documentary Behind the Legend (as a child she had FC Bayern bedsheets!)

A journey to the dark side, literally

If anything defines Ogden's career path, it's a curiosity for the next frontier.  

At first, that frontier was HIV, a fascination that led her to study biology and gain a PhD in Virology at UCL in London.

What followed were stints in HIV and cancer drug development. 

"I was lucky to work on a new HIV drug at Novartis in Switzerland. I moved on to Johnson & Johnson here in Sydney, this time on cancer research and learnt more about how global pharmaceutical companies function and how excited they were about biotechs," Ogden recalls. 

It was at Novartis where Ogden's purview began to widen beyond research and drug development.

"At the same time, the lab next door was developing what would become one of Novartis' blockbuster cancer drugs," says Ogden. "Seeing all that first-hand made me want to understand drug development companies - I was really interested in how they make decisions."

At the time, biotechs were starting to gain some buzz in the industry. 

"The genomics bubble just happened, while financial types were all worried, the drug development industry knew that the biotech industry would grow in importance," Ogden says. 

Soon after, Platinum Asset Management founder Kerr Neilson pitched Ogden his idea for a healthcare fund. 

But like the Petri dishes she'd used countless times before, Ogden was mostly kept in the dark. 

"I said, 'Look, I don't know what funds management is, I don't know what you do every day.' And Kerr said, 'Don't worry, it's all very good'," she shares. 

"I asked if I could just come in for a day and have a look. And he said, 'No, you can't. I can employ you, but you can't just have a look.'

"And I said, well, that's really unhelpful."

As she would later find out, Neilson was concerned that the male-dominated world of managed funds would put Ogden off. 

Eight months later, with precious little to go on, she took the job with Platinum. 

A rocky start

Transitioning into funds management didn't come easy for Ogden. There was a hefty vernacular to learn, and not many women at the time used it. Simply because there were so few women in the industry. 

Then there was the actual investment side - pulling the trigger and backing a stock. For a fund manager, this is where the rubber meets the road. 

At first, the rubber didn't quite grip the tarmac.

"My first pick was Merck (NASDAQ: MRK). Two weeks after buying it the company withdrew Vioxx, a prescription drug used to treat arthritis. I thought that was the end of my analyst career!" She says. 

Ogden quickly cottoned on that setbacks are opportunities dressed up as failures. 

"Kerr was super excited and saw an opportunity! It was one of the biggest learnings in my funds management career," she recalls. 

Back yourself

Ogden's subsequent success has been grounded in the unique skillset she brings to the table. 

"It is not easy, and at times things don’t go well or feel very challenging, but perseverance and factual thinking are key," she says.  

Finance was then, and still is, a male-dominated industry. 

"No doubt funds management is male-dominated, given my technical background some will put you in a box and fail to see the strategic thinking. It is all about self-confidence and speaking up in a constructive manner. Stick to your values and who you are," she says. 

Meet, greet and question

Funds management is a data-heavy pursuit. And to an extent, there's no getting around that. 

But the numbers are just one piece of the puzzle. More often than not, the aetiology of those numbers can be traced back to human decisions.  

"Go out and talk to people in the industry, companies are not run on spreadsheets, people are at the core of companies, they make right and wrong decisions," says Ogden. 

"As a fund manager, we don’t really make the hard decisions about deploying large amounts of capital for a new project or decide to restructure because an approach has failed, make sure you listen and expose yourself to aspects you don’t know. I learn every day from the companies that I look at and they do shape my thinking."

Interacting with management also offers one of the best insights into a company's future - its plans, but also its plan Bs. 

"What are you going to do the next five years? It's not about tomorrow. You had a setback here, what are you doing about that? What's your plan B? How do you work with that? And who do you talk to?" Ogden explains. 

Finally, meeting management provides Ogden with the ability to "triangulate". 

"Let's say you talk to a range of companies in the gene therapy space at the $50 million market cap really struggling to raise money but have a product approved," she says. 

"Then you go and talk to a company that sits at a $10 billion market cap about to get a product approved. And so you try to understand the hold-up. What's happening? What are the challenges? Where do you raise money? You get a feel for what's happening in the companies.

"Then on the other side, you speak to doctors that use it or the scientists that work on it."

Outlook for markets (and some stocks to play it)

Inflation continues to grip markets, and the healthcare sector isn't immune. But Ogden reckons this should die down, with some sector consolidation to follow.

"The ongoing debate about inflation adds uncertainty, but towards the end of the year things should become clearer and I am sure we will see more M&A," she says. 

In pharmaceuticals, expiring patents equals opportunity. 

"In the coming years, there is another patent cliff upon us. Large drug developers have ample cash to spend. Get ready," she says. 

Ogden has high conviction in biotech, despite it being a beaten-down sector. 

"Biotech had a very tough year, the macro narrative has dominated and many investors ran (and still run) a mile from these companies," says Ogden. 

"What is great though is that there is quite a lot of money dedicated to this sector, we have seen some successful IPOs, we have seen solid fundraisings and we are seeing progress. Things are gradually improving." 

Ogden is also excited about the strengthening nexus between machine learning and biotech.  

"To us, the computer sciences will continue to infiltrate drug discovery over the next decade. They have pipelines coming out very quickly," she says. 

"Computer science is making great strides and without a doubt will shape drug discovery in the coming decade."

Finally, "neurology is seeing innovation, and given the macro environment, emerging life science tool companies are cheap," Ogden says. 

At the stock level, Ogden is excited about Exscientia (NASDAQ: EXAI), a UK biotech that combines computer sciences and biotech. It has an emerging pipeline, ongoing clinical trials, and various partnerships within the pharmaceutical sector. 

Ogden also offers up Takeda (NASDAQ: TAK), a Japanese pharmaceutical company that embraces biotech. 

"It knows how to integrate companies, the pipeline is emerging, and its plasma business is a steady earner," she adds. 

Managed Fund

Platinum International Health Sciences Fund

Global Shares

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