"Reimbursement is starting to come through for Cytyc, and all I can say is God bless them," says Wilmoth, who adds that her father is a physician who has wanted to use the ThinPrep test but hasn't been able to because the lab he uses doesn't own the equipment. "They're finally getting labs to invest in the technology, and building up enough of a critical mass from insurance companies. It's a complicated dance. In order to convince the labs there will be enough volume coming from doctors, you have to get reimbursement in place, and to do that you have to convince the insurance companies that this is something that has to be covered."
One other company that's worth watching is a small, privately held firm called Biex, which makes a saliva test that can effectively tell a woman whether she's going to have a pre-term delivery. A woman who gets two positives on the test -- which can be taken at home -- is eight times as likely to have a baby in the following two weeks as a woman who gets two negatives. Biex nearly went public last year, but when the overall market's appetite for new issues waned, so, too, did the company's chances of an IPO. Somewhere down the road, though, you may get a chance to own shares in the firm.
Of course, if you're going to own shares in any company with a commitment to women's health care, your best bet is almost certainly one of the bigger drug companies, which offer the chance to invest in what you know and the protection of a diversified product base. Among midsize companies worth looking at, Genentech makes Herceptin, which has had good clinical results in fighting advanced breast cancer. And generic-drug-maker Barr Laboratories owns the rights to distribute tamoxifen, a 25-year-old drug recently shown to also be effective against breast cancer.
Among the true powerhouses, Johnson & Johnson, with its recent acquisitions of Biopsys and Gynecare (which makes products to treat fibroids and excessive menstrual bleeding), is moving strongly into the field, and its reputation as an aggressive acquirer means that more purchases may be in the offing. American Home Products has Premarin, the No. 1- prescribed drug in the U.S., and Merck has Fosamax, the first real alternative to estrogen for osteoporosis. Eli Lilly, meanwhile, is probably the leader in the field, in terms of both its broad-based commitment to research and the long-term prospects for Evista. In targeting both osteoporosis and breast cancer, Evista is a potential blockbuster. And if the blunt but accurate formula demographics + demand = dollars really means anything, it's that Lilly's future is especially bright.
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