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It's a very good thing that Andrew Waight has degrees in genetics and biochemistry. The manager of both the CI Global Health Sciences Corporate Class (U.S.$) fund and the Canadian-dollar version can discuss medical breakthroughs as easily as other people talk about the weather.

Take phenylketonuria, a genetic disorder in which the body lacks the enzyme needed to convert and use an essential protein-building amino acid, phenylalanine. The amino acid can reach dangerous levels, and cause brain damage and other complications. But there are promising new synthetic enzyme replacements, including Phenoptin, produced by California-based BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc.

With his scientist's eye, Waight looked at Phenoptin and other BioMarin offerings two years ago, and he bought shares in the company. The share price has climbed to more than $13 (all currency in U.S. dollars), from $8. BioMarin now accounts for 6.6% of the fund's assets, and it fits one of Waight's key themesto invest in companies working on products for an unmet medical need. This approach has also helped make the fund the top performer in Globefund's health care category over the past three years.

As well as his health care credentials, Waight, 42, also has an MBA and a chartered financial analyst's designation, and he co-manages several other funds. He knows that investing his health care fund's money only in small companies that hope to deliver breakthrough drugs would be very risky. To compensate and stabilize performance, he follows a broad-based approach that begins by looking at major trends in health care, such as private delivery and the outsourcing of drug manufacturing. He then tries to find companies poised for leadership.

The core of Waight's portfolio is made up of his "big, steady Eddies"including heavyweight pharmaceutical and health care product makers such as GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also looks for potential turnaround stocks like Tenet Healthcare, the second-largest hospital operator in the United States. Waight evaluates all the usual financial metrics, but one predominates: "Cash flow is king for me," he says.

High-risk biotechs that are still going through clinical trials with new drugs make up only a small proportion of the fund's holdings. "The mandate is global health care, and that includes everything from biotech and nursing homes to generics, services and medical devices," says Waight. Yet he has a relatively small 48 holdings in the $240-million fund. "I invest in fewer stocks, make larger bets and get it right on those fewer names," he says.

Waight has even earned strong returns from formerly scandal-plagued ImClone Systems, Martha Stewart's speculative play and the maker of the anti-cancer drug Erbitux. It is Waight's largest holding, at 10.3% of the fund.

But other investments have a more uncertain prognosis in the short term. Many brand-name drug makers have stalled on innovation and face big price reductions as drugs go off-patent. It's also hard to keep close tabs on every stock, even as few as 48.

Waight has trouble fitting in exercise between reading scientific journals and the long commute to his family home northwest of Toronto. Still, he's kept a sometimes mordant sense of humour, the product of his British heritage (he was subsequently raised in Regina and Ottawa). As he counsels investors: "You can complain about the price of drugs, and they are very high, but one way to get your money back is to invest in the companies that are milking you." CI Global health sciences corporate class (U.S.$) fund

1 year % 3 Year % 5 Year %

Average annual compound returns (to Jan. 31, 2006) 19.6 28.8 8.3

Index (Globe Health Care Peer Index) 9.3 7.5 -4.0