The accompanying table (click to enlarge) presents the top five rated companies with market caps of at least $100M from each of the eight new ETF Innovators healthcare indexes, including a database exceeding 500 companies worldwide. The Healthcare Composite Index is a dynamic, semi-active index with quarterly rebalancing which consists of the 40 top-rated companies on an equal weight basis from each of the eight global healthcare indexes listed below and represents an alternative strategy to existing health composite ETFs -- which tend to have highly correlated returns and over-weight exposure to the same widely held companies.

1.) Hospitals & Outpatient Care – Almost Family (AFAM)
2.) Pet Care & Animal 'Farma' – PetMed Express (PETS)
3.) Cosmetic & Reconstructive Medicine – Osiris Therapeutics (OSIR)
4.) Healthcare Cost Containment – Teva Pharma (TEVA)
5.) Health Information Technology – Allscripts-Misys (MDRX)
6.) Preventive Medicine – Landauer (LDR)
7.) Health Innovators – Thoratec (THOR)
8.) Emerging Bio-Pharma – ViroPharma (VPHM)

Click on any of the links above to view the most recent article and top rated companies from each of the underlying healthcare indexes, which results in an alternative indexing strategy for the global healthcare sector by giving each company an equal weight status and choosing the top five rated companies from eight new global health indexes.

The index of 40 companies posted a gain of 36% over the past year, compared to losses of about 27% for each of the three most popular healthcare composite ETFs by net assets, including the Healthcare Sector SPDR (XLV), iShares S&P Global Healthcare (IXJ), and Vanguard Healthcare (VHT).