FTXH vs PBPH

FTXHBFirst Trust Nasdaq Pharmaceuticals ETF

PBPHBPortfolio Building Block World Pharma and Biotech Index ETF

In short

FTXH Most pharma funds just size positions by market cap. FTXH screens US pharma stocks for liquidity, then ranks and weights them on value, momentum and profitability, so the biggest drugmaker isn't automatically the biggest holding.

PBPH Most biotech funds stop at the US border. PBPH buys the developed world's drug complex, pharma and biotech together, through a plain index fund charging 0.13%.

Stated mandate

FTXH The fund seeks returns broadly matching the price and yield of the Nasdaq US Smart PharmaceuticalsTM Index before expenses. It uses an indexing approach intended to replicate that index’s holdings and weights, targeting 95% correlation, without assuring success.

PBPH The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the BITA Global Pharma and Biotech Select Index.

Why people hold it

• FTXH Weights follow a factor scorecard (value, momentum, profitability) rather than company size, a different recipe from the plain cap-weighted pharma funds it sits beside.ftportfolios.com
• Stays in its lane: US pharmaceutical companies, not a broad health care blend of biotech, device makers and insurers.ftportfolios.com
• Live since 2016 with a few hundred million in assets, it changes hands actively and pays distributions quarterly.
• Index replication is the whole job here, and the fund has kept close to the Nasdaq US Smart Pharmaceuticals Index it advertises.ftportfolios.com

• PBPH 0.13% a year, in a global thematic aisle where the typical fund charges several times that. Fee drag is about as small as this shelf gets.
• Pharma and biotech under one ticker, global rather than US-only, so overseas drugmakers sit alongside the American names.portfoliobuildingblocketfs.com
• Straight index replication inside an ordinary 1940 Act fund. Published rules do the picking, not a manager's hunch.
• Cheap build plus workable trading puts it among the stronger implementations in its global thematic peer group.

Worth knowing

• FTXH The screen costs money: 0.60% a year, above the pharma-ETF median and well above cap-weighted rivals PPH (0.36%) and XPH (0.35%).
• About 50 names in a single sector. Patent rulings, trial results and drug-pricing headlines land with full force.
• Factor weighting cuts both ways: the lineup can look quite different from a standard cap-weighted pharma benchmark, and behave differently too.

• PBPH One industry, one storyline. Drug pricing rules, patent cliffs and trial readouts swing this basket in ways the broad market does not feel.
• Launched in late 2025, so there is no long live record showing how closely it hugs the index across a full cycle.
• Cash comes back once or twice a year, not monthly. This is an exposure holding, not an income schedule.

Full FTXH profile⁠

Full PBPH profile⁠