Over the last decade the healthcare sector has been a great place to invest your money.
During this time the S&P/ASX 200 Health Care index has almost quadrupled in value.
Whilst I'm not expecting the same level of outperformance over the next decade, I believe it is well-positioned to outperform the wider market due to a growing number of favourable tailwinds.
In light of this, I think owning a few healthcare shares could be a very good thing in the 2020s.
Three that I would consider buying are listed below:
CSL Limited (ASX: CSL)
CSL is one of the world's leading biotherapeutics companies. I think it would be a great long term option due to the quality of its CSL Behring and Seqirus businesses. CSL Behring is the global leader in plasma therapies and Seqirus is the second biggest influenza vaccines business. Both businesses look well-positioned for long-term growth due to their leading products and lucrative development pipelines. In addition to this, extremely strong demand for immunoglobulins products looks set to underpin above-average growth in the near term.
Opthea Ltd (ASX: OPT)
Although Opthea is a bit more speculative than the others, I believe the risk/reward on offer is compelling. It is a developer of novel biologic therapies for the treatment of eye diseases. The key product in its portfolio at this stage is the OPT-302 combination therapy. Last year Opthea delivered exceptionally strong Phase 2b study results. If Phase 3 is as successful then the future could be very bright for the company. After all, the current standard of care treatments for wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema had sales of over US$3.7 billion and US$6.2 billion in 2018.
Pro Medicus Limited (ASX: PME)
Pro Medicus is a leading provider of a full range of radiology IT software and services to hospitals, imaging centres, and healthcare groups globally. It was a very impressive performer in FY 2019 thanks to strong demand for its offering. This led to it reporting a whopping 91.9% increase in full year profit to $19.1 million. Given the quality of its products and its sizeable market opportunity, I believe Pro Medicus is capable of continuing this strong form for some time to come. And with its shares down 42% from their 52-week high prior to today, now could be an opportune time to pick them up with a long term view.
