No question about it, investors are in survival mode right now-just trying to hang on in a market that has given away much of last year's gains. But there is hope. Over both the short and the long haul, health care stocks, and specifically biotechs, are a good place to be for investors, even in a down market.

Another reason for optimism is that in the past seven years (since the last U.S. recession), the baby boomers-77 million strong-have gotten seven years older. In the mind of many Wall Street mavens, that means more consumer demand for the kinds of disease-fighting and life-enhancing products pouring out of life sciences companies these days. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that as the boomers advance in age, the market for health-related technologies will grow along with them.

Another reason for the expanded financial pipelines is that the biotech sector has, by and large, increased its research and development capacities.

According to the Journal of Life Sciences, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector is now the largest market in terms of research and development investment-leapfrogging over the technology hardware and equipment sector last year. Among the list of the top 50 R&D investors (among the biotech firms) that demonstrated big spikes in R&D spending last year were Merck (up 24.3 percent from the previous year), AstraZeneca (15.5 percent), Roche (15.5 percent), Johnson & Johnson (12.9 percent), Novartis (10.7 percent), and GlaxoSmithKline (10 percent). Worldwide, investment in R&D rose 10 percent since 2005.

There is also plenty of additional good news coming out of this sector in 2008, at least compared to the rest of the stock market. Most notably:

• Strong valuations (meaning biotech stocks have plenty of room to grow)

• Tighter cost controls (good budgeting by managers)

• A slate of impressive new drug development pipelines (good research & development trends)

• Solid balance sheets (the bottom line financial picture is a good one)

Where to look for good opportunities: To defensive investors looking for profit potential in what is shaping up to be a down year on Wall Street, companies that profit from Medicare Advantage are poised for a bull run. Savvy investors might also want to start thinking about drug store chains that may also benefit from the prescription drug component of Medicare Advantage.

It all adds up to a major long-term buying opportunity in biotech in 2008. The key ingredients are all there for investors-an economy expected to slow in 2008, a record number of Baby Boomers hitting 60, and a market move away from aggressive stocks and into defensive ones.

That should get the biotech sector-and its beleaguered investors-out of critical care and into some flush financial times.