There are significant advantages in medical treatment at home: keeping people in hospital beds is expensive, and not much fun for the patient. Some people actually suffer from malnutrition following a diet of hospital food! When we were asked to look at Caremark, a company which delivers drugs to people at their homes, it was clear that one of the main issues was whether the NHS would be willing, and able, to allow more people to be treated at home.

An even more important issue was not immediately apparent until we analysed the business's forecasts: we discovered that the plans involved a complete transformation in the company's product range. Treatments for infertility and for multiple sclerosis were generating tiny revenues, yet were expected to provide three-quarters of the company's business by 2001. To make matters worse, both these treatments are highly controversial because of their cost.

Many observers have questioned whether the NHS should bear the cost of infertility treatment. Tabloid newspapers run stories suggesting that most of the patients are either well-heeled yuppies who could easily afford to go private, or single mums desperately seeking to hang on to a relationship with a new partner by bearing his child.

Few voices are raised against the principle of taxpayers' money paying to alleviate the terrible suffering of MS, but scare stories have circulated about the danger of bankrupting the NHS with expensive drug therapies. Beta interferon is the only drug which offers relief to MS patients, but it costs ?10,000 per patient per year, and as many as 30,000 people could benefit from it. Inconsistent policies in different health authorities led to the "healthcare by postcode" row.

Researching these issues was never less than intriguing. Did you know, for instance, that the most common infertility drug was made from the urine of post-menopausal women? And that a large proportion of it was collected in a sort of milk round from nunneries in Italy?!

Opinions regarding the prospects for the two treatment areas were generally positive. The relevant drug companies are very bullish, and at a macro level their arguments are convincing. But the devil is always in the details - particularly regarding timing. However, the investors were convinced, the vendor was in a hurry to sell and, in a short space of time, the deal was done.