Monthly health and biotech wrap: health stocks best month so far this year

April was the month that ASX small cap health stocks began to capture the momentum of the bull market seen this year.

Stocks gained 4.56 percent in April, bringing their year to date performance up to 5.24 percent.

The health sector contains several ‘make or break’ stocks that hinge on either clinical studies or the take up of its products.

As is usually the case, the best performers were the ones that have either ‘made it’ or gone a significant step towards being able to say they have.

The winners

The two best performers were app-related stocks; Resapp (ASX: RAP) and Painchek (ASX: PCK).

Resapp can diagnose respiratory diseases from coughing into a smartphone and PainChek can diagnose pain through images of a person’s face – which can be useful when patients cannot verbalise it.

Resapp announced the top-line results of a clinical study that found its smartphone-based algorithms were found to “accurately diagnose acute respiratory disease – achieving greater than 86 percent positive and negative percent agreement for lower respiratory tract disease and pneumonia compared with clinical diagnosis.”

Painchek’s rise was sparked by the federal government agreeing to invest $5 million into the company although it also achieved significant commercial deals.

The third top performer in April was med tech play Neurotech (ASX: NTI). It has had no news this month but perhaps investors are inspired by the vision of the company, which aims to help children with autism. This is done through medical devices which provide neuro-feedback, thus relaxing their minds.

While cannabis stocks have had a rough patch in recent months, the stand out performer was MGC Pharmaceuticals (ASX: MXC) who gained 29 per cent. This came after it signed a deal to sell its products in China.

Top 15 performing health and biotech small cap ASX stocks

Ticker	Name	Market Cap	Price (1-May)	Total Return April (%)	Total Return YTD 2019 (%)
RAP	RESAPP HEALTH LTD	$    121,297,840.00	0.185	101	76
PCK	PAINCHEK LTD	$       58,149,152.00	0.067	91	72
NTI	NEUROTECH INTERNATIONAL LTD	$          2,714,877.50	0.023	64	-42
ALC	ALCIDION GROUP LTD	$       75,733,088.00	0.092	59	104
NOX	NOXOPHARM LTD	$       71,108,808.00	0.625	56	49
AHZ	ADMEDUS LTD	$       35,396,568.00	0.06	50	-3
AGH	ALTHEA GROUP HOLDINGS LTD	$    103,688,096.00	0.54	42	120
DVL	DORSAVI LTD	$       11,832,973.00	0.058	41	-6
ANP	ANTISENSE THERAPEUTICS LTD	$       23,105,692.00	0.053	39	104
M7T	MACH7 TECHNOLOGIES LTD	$       36,961,780.00	0.25	35	19
RHT	RESONANCE HEALTH LTD	$       54,924,684.00	0.125	34	108
FTT	FACTOR THERAPEUTICS LTD	$          5,214,178.00	0.004	33	100
AZV	AZURE HEALTHCARE LTD	$       19,082,452.00	0.082	30	17
MXC	MGC PHARMACEUTICALS LTD	$       53,364,540.00	0.044	29	10
MDR	MEDADVISOR LTD	$       77,688,672.00	0.058	26	66

This content does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.