r28, 2020 BARRON’S 19

A

n upside to Covid? Surely, we’re joking.

Surely, we aren’t.

For all the horror wrought by the coronavirus pandemic,

there is some good news, too. Efforts to understand this novel

virus and find a preventive vaccine have kick-started innova-

tion all across the health-care spectrum, from biotechnology

and drug development to diagnostics and patient care. Recent

advances in technology, powered by computational biology and artifi-

cial intelligence, are driving the creation of new health-care companies

and reshaping industry leaders—and promise rich rewards for inves-

tors in both.

That’s the message of this year’s health-care roundtable, whose

panelists can barely contain their optimism about the revolution at

hand. Yes, they agree, it could be another long and dreary year before

a safe and durable Covid vaccine is ready for broad distribution. But

the post-Covid world could see a panoply of brand-new tools to solve

age-old problems like cancer, kidney disease, and genetic disorders,

allowing scientists to target disease pathways that weren’t recognized

or understood even a few years ago.

The 2020 roundtable, conducted in early September on Zoom, fea-

tures Eli Casdin, founder and chief investment officer of Casdin Capi-

tal, a New York–based investment firm focused on life sciences and

health care; Abbie Celniker, a partner at Third Rock Ventures, a Bos-

ton-based health-care venture-capital firm that invests in and

launches life-science start-ups; Geoffrey Porges, a senior biopharma

analyst at SVB Leerink, a health-care investment bank; and Edward

Yoon, health-care sector leader at Fidelity Investments and manager of

several health-care-oriented equity mutual funds, including the $9.

billion Fidelity Select Health Care Portfolio (FSPHX), rated five

stars by Morningstar.

In addition to airing their big-picture views on everything from

Covid treatments to public-health funding, this formidable foursome

SPEEDING UP

HEALTH-CARE

INNOVATION

TheCovidpandemichas

acceleratedscientific

discoveriesandnewtherapies.

Ourroundtableexperts

highlightthemostpromising

developmentsinhealthcare

andthebestinvestmentbets.

By LAUREN R. RUBLIN

Illustration by KEVIN VAN AELST