Over the last five years the S&P/ASX 200 Health Care index has been a stronger performer, significantly outperforming the gains made by the S&P/ASX 200.
This has remained the case over the last 12 months with the healthcare index outperforming the ASX 200 by a whopping 26%.
While I wouldn't necessarily expect the same sort of outperformance in 2019, given the quality on offer on the index I feel there could still be some strong gains being made.
With that in mind, I think it could be worth considering a little exposure to the sector through one of these fast-growing shares:
Nanosonics Ltd (ASX: NAN)
Nanosonics is an infection control specialist which I think could have a very bright future ahead of it. This is largely down to its increasingly popular trophon EPR product. The trophon product is an automated system that delivers effective, efficient and safe high-level disinfection of ultrasound probes. In FY 2018 it grew its installed base by 25% to 17,740 units thanks to strong demand in North America. The good news is this is still only scratching at the surface of a global market opportunity estimated to be 120,000 units.
Pro Medicus Limited (ASX: PME)
Pro Medicus is the healthcare technology company behind the popular Visage 7 software. Visage 7 provides radiologists and referring physicians with fast server-side rendered images streamed via an intelligent thin-client viewer, allowing users to have a customised protocol-driven workflow to natively view multi-dimensional imagery and a patient's complete imaging history. A number of highly respected global healthcare institutions have signed multi-year agreements for the software over the last 12 months, which I feel is a testament to the quality of the product.
Volpara Health Technologies Ltd (ASX: VHT)
Another fast-growing healthcare share to consider is Volpara Health Technologies. It is a provider of breast imaging analytics and analysis products and has been growing at an explosive rate in recent years. Pleasingly, thanks to the expansion of its sales force, this growth is expected to accelerate in FY 2019. Management is aiming to win a 9% share of the U.S. breast screening market by the end of the financial year, up from 3.2% at the end of FY 2018. If it achieves this then it is likely to lead to another significant jump in annual recurring revenues.
