The healthcare sector is going through significant changes and many investors are worried about how a change in administration will affect healthcare companies. While the future of managed care and Medicare spending are uncertain, there are a few subsectors that should continue to experience rapid growth regardless of politics. Here is an introduction to 5 trends that could make you big returns.

1. Generics

The Generic Utilization rate for the United States was about 60% in 2007 and both candidates have expressed support for raising the utilization rate over the next few years. With the large amount of branded drugs going off patent being offset by an increase in spending on specialty drugs, savings from substituting cheaper generics is a trend I believe will continue to grow stronger. Pharmacy Benefit Managers like Medco Health Solutions (MHS: 46.90, +0.27 (+0.58%)) and Express Scripts (ESRX: 74.00, -0.07 (-0.09%)) have been adamantly encouraging the use of generic drugs which has led to a significant reduction in year over year drug trend for the two companies. Some of the big players in the generics industry are Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA: 46.15, -0.62 (-1.33%)), Mylan Inc (MYL: 11.01, -0.27 (-2.39%)), Watson Pharmaceuticals (WPI: 28.47, -0.50 (-1.73%)), and Ranbaxy Labs.

2. Personalized Medicine

Personalized Medicine, also known as pharmacogenomics is the study of how drugs interact with the individual human genotype. After the 25,000 genes of the human genome were identified, many were unsure how this achievement could aid and prolong human life. Since 2003 doctors have worked to identify genetic variations in different persons that could increase the efficacy of treatment. According to the 2008 Medco Drug Trend Report, “the (top) five drug categories for which the current approach of trial-and-error prescribing can lead to relatively poor response to medications” resulted in $17.5 billion or 37% of money used to be wasted due to poor therapeutic response. Reducing the inefficiencies in drug interactions can help reduce healthcare costs.