3 AI Healthcare Stocks to Ride Out the Coronavirus Resurgence
The implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the healthcare sector has been rather diverse and extensive over the past few months, owing to the coronavirus pandemic. The reliance on these technologies is growing, primarily because of their ability to simplify the assessment of complicated data and cases. Therefore, now would be the ideal time for one to look at a couple of AI stocks from an investment perspective.
Prospects Are Bright for AI in Healthcare
Looking closely at the growth prospects of AI in the healthcare sector, one finds can find many. According to a report by Markets and Markets, artificial intelligence in the global healthcare market is expected to grow from $4.9 billion in 2020 to $45.2 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 44.9%.
AI in Healthcare: Factors Driving it Amid COVID-19
While the major reasons for using artificial intelligence in healthcare are the rising volume of healthcare data and increasing complexities of datasets, the need to bring healthcare costs down, and improving computing power and lessening hardware costs.
In addition, more cross-industry partnerships and collaborations, and the ever-growing gap between workforce in healthcare and patients are fueling the need for improvised healthcare services.
However, the aforementioned factors are driving the need for AI applications in healthcare right now owing to its crucial role in speeding up the development of a vaccine or drug for coronavirus.
To actually understand how impactful the usage of AI in healthcare is, let’s consider a data reported by Toronto-based AI platform BlueDot on New Year’s Eve. According to Wired, the platform picked up a “cluster of unusual pneumonia cases” in Wuhan, China.
The platform uses natural language processing and ML to track, locate and report on the spread of infectious diseases. This “cluster of unusual pneumonia cases” was reportedas COVID-19 by the World Health Organization nine days after it was spotted by BlueDot. The data clearly helped warn the world of the emerging global health crisis.
Over the past few months, AI has been used for predicting, screening, alerting, faster diagnosis, automated deliveries and laboratory drug discovery. With the pandemic still rampant around the world as new cases emerge every day, several new implementations of AI and ML are being used by companies and countries to bring the pandemic under control by exerting all possible modes of using the technology.
3 Stocks to Buy
We have, therefore, chosen three stocks that have extensive operations of AI in the healthcare sector. All these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
QIAGEN N.V. QGEN is a provider of insight solutions that transform biological materials into molecular insights. QIAGEN has an expected earnings growth rate of 21.7% for the current year. The company, which carries a Zacks Rank #1, belongs to the Zacks Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s current-year earnings has moved 26.1% north in the past 60 days.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. TMO is a provider of analytical instruments, laboratory equipment, software, reagents, instrument systems, consumables, chemicals, supplies and services etc. Thermo Fisher Scientific has an expected earnings growth rate of 15.9% for next year. The company, which carries a Zacks Rank #2, belongs to the Zacks Medical - Instruments industry. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s current-year earnings has moved 0.2% north in the past 60 days.
Teladoc Health, Inc. TDOC is the provider of virtual healthcare services on a business-to-business basis. Teladoc Health has an expected earnings growth rate of 35.9% for next quarter. The company, which carries a Zacks Rank #2, belongs to the Zacks Medical Services industry. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s current-year earnings has moved 1.8% north in the past 60 days.
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