But UnitedHealth faces some other issues that have held back its performance recently. Pharmaceutical companies both within and outside the Dow Jones Industrial Average have seen substantial growth lately, with blockbuster drugs coming to market and helping to replace revenue from older drugs that have lost patent protection. For UnitedHealth, WellPoint, and other health insurers, though, brand-name drugs represent a huge cost of business, eating into their profit margins and diverting income toward pharma giants. Similarly, medical-device innovations can boost prospects for the companies that produce and sell them, but high-priced equipment often leads to higher costs for procedures, and that can crimp UnitedHealth's profits as well.