(FORTUNE Magazine) – Enticed by the growth prospects of health care but leery of making a single bet on one company's future? Here's the cream of a growing crop of funds that specialize in the sector. We've screened that group to find those with the best records over the past five years--a particularly tumultuous period for drug stocks, which saw them fall 37% between early 1992 and mid-1994, then double in price from early 1995 till now. Our picks have weathered that stretch in excellent shape.

And what are their strategies for the years ahead? Kurt von Emster, who runs the top-ranked Franklin Global Health, is betting on a full pipeline of late-stage biotech drugs. "As you see these products coming to market in the next six to nine months, I think the industry will really take off," he predicts. Richard England at Putnam Health Sciences expects medical-technology companies with global franchises to boom. One favorite: Trex Medical, which is developing a digital mammography machine that enables quicker diagnoses. "There is a fabulous demographic positive in this industry," he says of the high-end medical-hardware business, which he believes will be a profit center as America ages. "We've got a new 50-year-old every seven seconds." --Amy Kover