Everthing You Need to Know About the Longevity Thematic ETF

The longevity industry needs to fill a high demand for better quality healthcare, seniors, and pharmaceuticals. Whether investors are curious about longevity companies, or the industry, investing in the Global X Longevity Thematic ETF (NASDAQ:LNGR) is a viable option with less risk than investing in a single company.

This longevity exchange-traded fund (ETF) should have a long-term growth potential as it’s working with companies focused on long-term solutions for healthcare based on “extending quality of life in advanced age,” Global X wrote on their website. In the last year, LNGR has given investors a 23.67 percent return, according to ETF Database and is expected to increase by 29.38 percent in the next year, according to Global X.

Though the companies in the LNGR holdings are more or less equally weighted, the holdings are predominately large and mid market cap range. All prices and quotes are taken from Google Finance after market close. Here are the top five holdings on the LNGR, which are important companies to follow as they are leaders in the longevity industry:

• AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV)
• Celltrion (KOSDAQ:068270)
• Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO)
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRTX)
• Fresenius Medical Care (NYSE:FMS)

Holdings in LNGR

There are 98 holdings in LNGR, and the percentage of assets weighted in the top 15 fairly equal for its category at 47.13 percent.

Top on the list of holdings is AbbVie, weighing 4.61 percent. This biopharmaceutical company has a broad range of disease focuses, but Bloomberg wrote that the company’s longevity drug Humira is the world’s best-seller and most under-valued from investors. With a market cap of 172.93 billion, and an overall stock price increase of 51.78 percent in the last six months to $108.48—it’s clear why this company is top on the list.

Celltrion, a Korean-based company has the smallest amount of approved products, compared with the other companies on this list—just two—this company is weighted at 3.88 percent. This company is hoping to enhance the quality of life of humanity by developing biosimilars—similar to generic drugs, but without being biologically identical. With a whopping market cap of 31.64 trillion, and a share price of $271,400, the stock price which increased 148.08 percent over the last six months could be due to foreign funds, wrote the Financial Times. After being hit with a USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning letter on February 1, its stock price dipped 9.47 percent.

The next holding, Novo Nordisk, has a 3.64 percent weight on the index, and is highly focused on longevity through developing new treatment for diabetes, obesity, homeostasis and more. With a stock price of $48.52 and a 17.93 percent increase over the last six months, an it suggested that almost half of the 15 analyst ratings were positive with buy and hold ratings for the company. Novo’s market cap is $96.38 billion.

With a 3.53 percent weighting on the LNGR index, Vertex has a large designation of it’s scientific focus on cystic fibrosis (CF)—10 out of the 16 candidates in their pipeline are for CF. The last year has been positive for Vertex as stocks increased 74.8 percent to $151.60—which may be due to positive data from one of their Phase 1 and 2 studies for a CF candidate—and a market cap of $38.34 billion.

The last company on the top five of the LNGR holding is Fresenius, has a strong focus on kidney treatments with 37 production sites spread across every continent. Analysts at Warburg Research target the price to increase 27.23 percent, according to an article by the Lincolnian. Their stock price is $51.53, and their market cap is $31.84 billion.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle Lakusta, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.