Categories: Stock Market
Topics: Alternative Investments

This Stock is Solving a Healthcare Crisis

There are few things in the world more stressful than a hospital visit. 

Whether you’re seeing your doctor for a routine checkup, visiting the ER, or having to go for a major surgery, it’s not exactly an experience to look forward to. 

So you can only imagine how much more stressful a hospital visit would be if you had to postpone it because of the hospital’s lack of a key component. 

We saw this at its most extreme during the worst of the pandemic. Hospitals were running out of beds and staff were facing burnout. That sort of thing made headlines and for good reason. 

Now, the healthcare industry is facing another potentially headline-making crisis thanks to a shortage of a critical element that it and much of our society functions on. 

I’m talking about helium; that lighter-than-air element that most people know for being used to fill party balloons. 

In short, we’re running out of it here on Earth. It’s the second-most abundant element in the universe but it’s becoming harder to find on our planet. 

It largely comes about as a byproduct of the natural decay that elements like uranium and thorium go through. The helium gets trapped in the Earth’s crust. When companies drill for oil and natural gas, much of that helium escapes. 

It has a long history of being extracted and stored thanks to its industrial uses. As we’ve found new uses for it over time, the supply has dwindled, causing the price for it to continue climbing. 

Geopolitics is also at play as is common with resource shortages. Russia is a helium miner with large amounts of it in Siberia. But with the country being a pariah on the world stage, we don’t have access to those stockpiles. 

The fact that few new sources of the element are being discovered is just another factor contributing to the shortage. 

So how does this affect the medical industry? 

People who have lung conditions that make breathing difficult, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), rely on helium-oxygen mixtures for relief. 

When helium is in a liquid form, it can reach temperatures as low as minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit. This quality is extremely important in MRI machines. A single machine contains something like 2,000 liters of helium to cool its magnets, allowing them to work. So, no helium, no functioning MRIs. 

MRIs are widely used to allow doctors to identify and treat everything from cancerous tumors to the nature of injuries and diseases affecting internal organs. 

The element also plays a big role in medical research. This mainly applies to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). This technique allows researchers to study the structure and composition of molecules. By understanding those qualities, they can better understand how potential treatments would work. 

Like MRIs, NMR instruments rely on the super-cooling properties of helium, so that’s another way in which the shortage we’re experiencing is a setback for the sector. 

As it always goes, as supply dwindles, prices and value will climb. With helium being as essential as it is, that maxim has never been more true. 

That’s why helium extraction here in the US is set to take off very soon. 

It’s been years since there has been a domestic helium plant but that will change on July 1. 

That’s when a small, little-known helium miner will be launching its plant and taking advantage of the massive opportunity this presents. 

This helium investment trades at a mere 40 cents a share right now but is positioned to multiply that value at least 8 times in just two years. 

It’s a helium stock you’ll want to buy as soon as possible. Once the plant goes online on July 1, that chance may evaporate like so much of the world’s current helium supply.

Ryan Stancil
Editor, Daily Profit Cycle