Prudential Financial's JennisonDryden has reopened its Health Sciences Fund, which had been closed to most new investors since July 2005.

Scott Benjamin, the top product and marketing executive at JennisonDryden, pointed to the opportunities presented by "a confluence of medical, regulatory, legal, and market trends."

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Company Press Release

JennisonDryden has reopened the Jennison Health Sciences Fund : (Class A: PHLAX) to all investors, effective immediately. The Lipper Award-winning fund has been closed to most new investors since July 2005. JennisonDryden is the proprietary mutual fund family of Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU).

"Reopening the fund gives the investment team the ability to take advantage of current market conditions" said Scott Benjamin, senior vice president and head of product and marketing for JennisonDryden. "A confluence of medical, regulatory, legal, and market trends offers unprecedented opportunity for the fund's seasoned healthcare team to make investment choices that give investors the potential for financial growth, particularly over the long-term."

David Chan and Michael Del Balso, both managing directors and portfolio managers at Jennison Associates LLC, manage the fund. Chan, with more than 20 years of experience, is Jennison’s health sciences equity portfolio manager and analyst. Del Balso, who has 40 years of investment experience, is Jennison’s director of research for growth equity and a large-cap growth equity portfolio manager.

"We rely on a research-intensive process to find companies poised to generate above-expected revenues and earnings growth," said Chan. "In this sector, growth could come from new product approvals, positive regulatory developments, significant mergers or partnerships and market dynamics."

The fund has been a Lipper Fund Award winner for the last four years. Most recently, the Jennison Health Sciences Fund (Class Z shares) won the Lipper Award for five-year performance out of 90 funds in the health/biotechnology category for the period ending Dec. 31, 2008.

To learn more about the Jennison Health Sciences Fund, along with other JennisonDryden funds, please visit www.jennisondryden.com.

JennisonDryden brings institutional asset management capabilities to retail investors and retirement plans in a wide range of mutual funds and separate accounts. JennisonDryden offers four asset managers—Jennison Associates, Quantitative Management Associates, Prudential Fixed Income Management and Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI ® )—all well known and respected by major corporations, pension plans, and other institutional investors throughout the world. Individuals investing in JennisonDryden products benefit from the same processes, research, risk management, and performance demanded by some of today’s largest and most sophisticated investors. The JennisonDryden fund family is distributed by Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, a Prudential Financial company, member SIPC. More information is available at www.jennisondryden.com.

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader with approximately $558 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2008, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping approximately 50 million individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth.

The company's well-known Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential's businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit www.news.prudential.com/

Mutual fund investing involves risk. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth less than the original cost. The Fund focuses it investments in the health sciences sector, thereby increasing its vulnerability to any single economic, political, or regulatory development. The Fund is nondiversified, so a loss resulting from a particular security or sector will have a greater impact on the Fund's return. The Fund may invest in foreign securities, which are subject to currency fluctuation and political uncertainty; and derivative securities, which may carry market, credit or liquidity risks. These risks may result in greater share price volatility. There is no assurance that the Fund’s objectives will be achieved.

Class Z shares are only available to participants in wrap-fee programs and retirement plans, and to various institutional investors who invest at least $10 million. To be eligible for the Lipper Fund Awards, funds had to be registered for sale in the U.S. and had to have at least 36 months of performance history at the end of 2008. S&P 500 Index funds, specialty diversified equity funds and specialty/miscellaneous funds were not eligible to receive classification awards. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The Lipper Fund Awards are based on risk-adjusted returns for the three-, five-, and 10-year periods, if applicable, ending December 31, 2008.

 

Edited by: Armie Margaret Lee


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