BetaShares Global Healthcare Currency Hedged ETF (DRUG) — Review & Analysis

DRUG is the currency-hedged counterpart to IXJ — it gives Australian investors global healthcare exposure with the AUD/USD effect neutralised. AUM is $163.32 million as at May 2026, with a 0.57% p.a. management fee. The portfolio composition is very similar to IXJ — the same Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, UnitedHealth, Roche and AbbVie holdings — just with a quarterly FX hedge applied on top. Compare DRUG against the full healthcare cohort on our healthcare and biotech ETF page.

The hedged vs unhedged decision matters because healthcare is one of the more globally diversified sectors on the ASX. When the USD rallies against AUD, unhedged IXJ typically outperforms DRUG; when the AUD strengthens, DRUG outperforms by stripping out the FX drag. Over long periods these tend to balance out, but in any given year the gap can be 5-10% in either direction.

DRUG's 0.57% fee is 16bp higher than IXJ's 0.41% — that's the price of the currency hedge. Over 20 years, the hedging cost compounds into a roughly 3% cumulative drag, which is the explicit trade-off investors are paying for FX certainty. For advisers running portfolios with separate currency overlays or for retirees who want returns reported in clean AUD terms without FX noise, DRUG is the cleaner instrument.

DRUG is one of the most reliable choices when an investor wants to express a pure healthcare view without taking on a directional currency bet. The fund is meaningfully smaller than IXJ in AUM, but liquidity is generally sufficient for retail-sized trades. Our hedged vs unhedged ETFs guide sets out the framework for currency-hedging decisions across asset classes including international equities.