The healthcare sector industry in Australia has been a significant growth area for companies in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) for years. Despite the volatility index of health care sector in the world of markets, the ASX healthcare sector index has shown defensive qualities due to consistent market demand for healthcare services, supplies pathology services and products.

The sector is home to a handful of established companies like CSL (ASX:CSL) that are world-renowned names and make multi billion dollar profits as well as a significant difference to the lives of many around the world. Then there are several dozen companies that are developing drugs of medical devices that they hope can become the next big blockbuster product, ranging from companies at the final clinical trial stage to companies that haven't even commenced clinical work yet.

ASX investors have made spectacular returns on certain companies that have realised this dream, such as Telix (ASX:TLX) and Neuren (ASX:NEU) in recent years. At the same time, it is a long hard slog to get a drug or device to market, and the dream can fail at multiple hurdles along the way, such as through clinical trials failing. And even established companies can endure challenges such as flat demand for their products, major cost inflation and competition. Investors in healthcare stocks have been concerned about the latter two issues with several big name stocks in the past year - specifically the weight loss drug Ozempic.

Ultimately, the ASX Healthcare sector presents several opportunities for investors to make money and to make it through companies making a major difference to the lives of the population.