Investing in healthcare stocks can be a wise decision for those looking to become wealthy in the long term. Some of the best healthcare stocks to buy are firms that are developing highly effective drugs for prevalent diseases for which there are no real effective treatments. These are companies whose pending remedies are far superior to the current standard of care. Also very attractive are firms that are creating revolutionary medical devices.

Because of the tremendous prices that governments and insurers will pay for these drugs and medical devices, top-notch healthcare stocks to buy can generate huge wealth for patient investors, making many of them millionaires in the process.

Revance (RVNC)

Revance (NASDAQ:RVNC) has launched Daxxify, an anti-wrinkle treatment that has an important advantage compared to Botox.

According to plastic surgeon, Dr. Sachin M. Shridharani, Daxxify “tends to stay tightly bound and last longer” than Botox. Specifically, Daxxify has an average lifetime of six months, versus “three to four months” for Botox.

Daxxify’s longer lifetime enables Revance to charge more for the product than AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) charges for Botox. Moreover, according to Revance, Daxxify does not include any more “core neurotoxin” than Botox. In addition, the US FDA just approved Daxxify in September 2022. Revance officially launched it in March 2023, and the treatment has already generated revenue of $15.4 million for the company in the first quarter.

Bionano Genomics (BNGO)

Oppenheimer analyst Francois Brisebois was extremely upbeat about Bionano’s (NASDAQ:BNGO) outlook after attending the company’s Strategy Day. Specifically, the analyst believes that BNGO is “well on its way ” to making its optical genome mapping (OGM) the “standard of care” for analyzing DNA.

BNGO showed that OGM can capture more structural variants of DNA than competing methods of DNA analysis, and the company is making progress when it comes to getting OGM reimbursed by insurers, the analyst reported. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out in past columns, BNGO intends to hold talks with the US Food and Drug Administration this year to obtain “clearance [from the agency] to market OGM for clinical use.”

If the FDA approves Saphyr, the company’s product that enables OGM analysis, for clinical use, it is likely to be widely adopted by hospitals to analyze patients with many diseases. If that scenario materializes, BNGO stock will soar, making many investors millionaires.

GSK (GSK)

GSK (NYSE:GSK) has multiple, strong, positive catalysts. One is Affinivax, a company GSK acquired in 2022. According to GSK, Affinivax has developed “next-generation pneumococcal vaccines.” Affinivax has a “pneumococcal vaccine candidate … in phase II development.” Its technology may provide “broader coverage against prevalent pneumococcal serotypes and [generate] higher antibody responses against many individual serotypes than current pneumococcal vaccines.”

The FDA has granted Affinivax’s leading vaccine candidate Breakthrough Designation. According to one study, the pneumococcal vaccines market will “reach $11.6 billion by 2027,” up from $8.5 billion in 2021.

In addition, the FDA approved GSK’s jab for the prevention of RSV, Arexvy. The shot is expected to become available to U.S. adults over 60 at the end of this year. The vaccine will compete with a similar offering from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), which the FDA also approved this year. Finally, the company’s Jemperli drug looks poised to be approved by the FDA as a treatment for rectal cancer and has already been approved as a treatment for a type of endometrial cancer. I believe that the drug has tremendous potential to be approved as a treatment for many other types of cancers.

Bristol-Myers (BMY)

Like GSK, Bristol-Myers (NYSE:BMY) is a large drug maker with multiple positive catalysts. In June 2022, the FDA approved BMY’s Breyanzi, “a CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, for the treatment of adult patients with (some types of) large B-cell lymphoma.” B-cell lymphoma is a type of blood cancer.

In a trial, patients taking Breyanzi achieved “median event-free survival of 10.1 months vs. 2.3 months” for the standard of care. BMY is developing multiple other cell therapies, which involve “the transplantation of human cells to replace or repair damaged tissue and/or cells.” Given Breyanzi’s success, other cell therapies developed by BMY are also highly likely to be approved by the FDA down the road and generate significant amounts of revenue for the company.

Additionally, BMY’s drug candidate, BMS-986278, lowered the deterioration of the lungs of pulmonary fibrosis patients by 62%, leaving it poised to become a top treatment for that disease. And as I pointed out in a previous column, I believe that BMY’s intensive collaboration with Schrodinger (NASDAQ:SDGR) will greatly boost BMY’s financial results over the longer term.

Inspire Medical Systems (INSP)

Inspire Medical Systems (NYSE:INSP) has developed a “minimally invasive” treatment for sleep apnea, a disorder with which “9% of the adult population in the U.S.” has been diagnosed. The company’s treatment appears to be generating gigantic and swiftly growing demand, as Inspire’s top line soared 84% year over year to nearly $128 million in the first quarter. Additionally, the company increased its top-line guidance to $580 million to $590 million from $560 million to $570 million previously.

“Our growth was driven primarily by the increased utilization at existing sites and complemented by the addition of 68 new implanting centers and 17 additional U.S. sales territories,” CEO Tim Herbert noted in a company press release. KeyBanc responded to the company’s results by raising its price target on INSP stock to $321 from $303, while investment bank Piper Sandler hiked its own price target on INSP to $315 from $305.

InMode (INMD)

InMode (NASDAQ:INMD) develops “radiofrequency-based medical products used in cosmetic procedures.”

The company’s top line is growing rapidly and its bottom line is well in the black. Meanwhile, INMD stock is still tremendously undervalued. In the first quarter, InMode’s top line jumped nearly 24% year over year to $106 million, while it generated a net income of $40.5 million, way above the $31 million that it reported during the same period a year earlier.

For all of 2023, InMode expects to generate an extraordinarily high gross margin, excluding certain items, of between 83% and 85%. Analysts, on average, expect its earnings per share to climb to $3 in 2024 from $2.63 in 2022. The shares have a very low forward price-earnings ratio of 14x.

Speaking on CNBC on June 14, buy-side analyst Karen Firestone sang INMD’s praises, saying that the shares could climb a great deal because “There are a lot of people spending money on keeping themselves looking good.”

Viking Therapeutics (VKTX)

Investment bank Roth MKM recently started coverage of Viking (NASDAQ:VKTX) with a $32 price target and a “buy” rating. Roth believes that Viking’s non-alcoholic steatohepatitis drug candidate, VK2809, which generated strong Phase 2 results, can become a “blockbuster.” The firm also predicts that the drug will have peak annual sales of $3.1 billion within the next 12 years.

Roth adds that the company’s obesity drug, which completed Phase I studies, is “highly competitive.” The firm thinks that the latter drug can be launched in the U.S. in 2029 and attain “peak global sales of $6.1B by 2035.” Viking’s current market capitalization of $2.1 billion is way below the name’s vast potential.

On the date of publication, Larry Ramer held LONG positions in BNGO and SDGR. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.