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Pharmaceutical stocks can be relatively defensive during a technology-led selloff, but they are not a guaranteed hedge or an inverse trade. Demand for essential medicines and chronic-care treatments usually changes less with the economic cycle than demand for discretionary technology products. That can make healthcare more resilient when expensive technology shares are repriced. However, drugmakers still face patent expirations, failed trials, pricing regulation, reimbursement decisions, recalls, manufacturing problems, foreign-exchange moves and broad market risk.
The practical answer depends on what is falling in technology, which healthcare companies you own, their valuations and how concentrated your existing portfolio is. A diversified healthcare index is not the same exposure as a portfolio of a few pharmaceutical companies.
What “defensive” means for pharmaceutical stocks
A defensive investment is expected to have relatively stable demand and earnings when economic growth slows or investors become risk-averse. It does not mean the price cannot fall. A defensive share can lose money in a market crash, especially if its valuation is high or the selloff is caused by a shock that also affects healthcare.
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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Healthcare is conventionally classified as defensive because, as BlackRock Fundamental Equities puts it, “medical needs do not wait on the economy.” Patients generally continue taking prescribed medicines during a recession, and hospitals and insurers continue providing essential services. This demand tends to be less sensitive to economic conditions than purchases of computers, advertising technology, enterprise software or other products whose budgets can be delayed.
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Pharmaceutical companies are only one part of healthcare. Sector indexes also include providers, managed-care companies, biotechnology firms, equipment makers, life-science tools businesses and distributors. Therefore, a healthcare index’s behavior can differ substantially from that of an individual drugmaker.
What historical drawdowns show
S&P Dow Jones Indices compared sector excess returns during several major drawdowns in a 2024 study. The figures below are sector-level excess returns for the periods identified by S&P, not total returns for a particular pharmaceutical stock and not a forecast.
| Market episode | Period or label in the S&P study | Health Care excess return | Information Technology excess return |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dot-com crash | September 1, 2000–October 9, 2002 | 27.60% | -32.90% |
| Global Financial Crisis | S&P study’s GFC period | 17.30% | 3.00% |
| COVID-19 crash | 2020 crash | 5.90% | 2.60% |
| 2022 bear market | 2022 bear market | 13.80% | -7.20% |
Healthcare outperformed information technology in each of those four comparisons. The difference was largest in the dot-com crash and 2022 bear market, while both sectors still produced positive excess returns in the Global Financial Crisis and 2020 comparison. S&P also stresses that no sector was spared in the 2020 crash and that past performance is no guarantee of future results.
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These numbers establish a pattern of relative resilience in selected drawdowns, not a stable inverse relationship. A pharmaceutical share can fall at the same time as technology shares, and a technology sector can rise while a particular drugmaker declines.
Why healthcare and technology can diversify each other
Healthcare and technology are driven by different portions of the economy, but their relationship changes over time. BlackRock’s rolling one-year S&P 500 sector analysis from December 29, 1995 through March 27, 2026 found that healthcare and technology have generally shown low-to-moderate correlation. During the recent artificial-intelligence-led technology narrative, the measured correlation was near a two-decade low.
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Low correlation means returns have not moved in lockstep over the measured period; it does not mean the sectors always move in opposite directions. Correlations can rise sharply during liquidity shocks when investors sell many assets at once. They can also change when healthcare becomes a popular growth trade, when technology companies become defensive cash generators or when interest-rate expectations affect both sectors.
For a portfolio, the relevant question is not whether pharma rises whenever technology falls. It is whether adding healthcare changes the portfolio’s overall sensitivity to economic growth, interest rates, valuation multiples and a concentrated technology factor.
Healthcare indexes are broader than pharmaceutical portfolios
MSCI’s ACWI Health Care Index includes the whole healthcare sector. Its largest constituents have included Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, Merck, UnitedHealth, Roche, Novartis, Thermo Fisher Scientific, AstraZeneca and Amgen. Some are pharmaceutical companies; others are insurers, diagnostics or life-science businesses.
A broad index can dilute the effect of one drug’s patent loss or one failed clinical trial. A portfolio holding three or four drugmakers cannot rely on that same diversification. Before treating historical healthcare data as a proxy for pharma, identify the benchmark, country, company weights and subsectors it actually contains.
| Exposure | What drives results | Main diversification benefit | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broad healthcare index | Medicines, providers, insurers, equipment and life-science tools | Reduces dependence on one product or trial | May include businesses with economic or policy sensitivities unlike drugmakers |
| Pharmaceutical basket | Drug sales, pipelines, patents and reimbursement | More direct exposure to medicine demand | Still concentrated by therapeutic area, geography or regulatory regime |
| Single pharmaceutical stock | One company’s products, pipeline, balance sheet and litigation | Precise company exposure | Highest idiosyncratic risk; sector behavior may not apply |
The kind of technology decline matters
Valuation or artificial-intelligence reset
If technology shares fall because investors reduce the premium paid for long-duration growth or artificial-intelligence expectations, profitable pharmaceutical companies may hold up better. The comparison is strongest when medicine demand remains steady and the drugmaker’s valuation is reasonable. A highly valued biotechnology or “next growth platform” stock may still sell off with other growth assets.
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Recession and falling corporate spending
A recession can reduce enterprise-technology budgets and consumer purchases while prescriptions remain comparatively stable. Yet healthcare is not insulated: employment changes can affect insurance coverage, elective procedures and medical utilization, and a severe recession can pressure government and commercial reimbursement.
Inflation and higher interest rates
Higher rates can compress valuation multiples across the market. Pharmaceutical companies with durable cash flows may decline less than speculative technology shares, but the result depends on starting valuations, debt and expected earnings growth. A company priced as a high-growth story can be rate-sensitive even if its products are essential.
Broad liquidity shock
When investors urgently raise cash, correlations often move toward one. In such an episode, healthcare shares can fall with technology and the rest of the market. Defensive characteristics may reduce the depth of a decline without preventing it.
Company-specific risks that can overwhelm defensive demand
Patent cliffs and competition
Revenue can drop rapidly when exclusivity ends and lower-priced competitors enter. A company whose earnings depend on one blockbuster medicine is more vulnerable than one with several products across therapeutic areas and regions.
Clinical-trial and pipeline risk
Future growth often depends on trial results, regulatory decisions and successful launches. A failed late-stage trial can erase years of expected earnings even while demand for existing medicines remains stable.
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Pricing, reimbursement and formulary policy
Government negotiation, reimbursement changes, insurer formularies and pharmacy-benefit decisions can reduce realized prices or volume. Litigation over pricing, patents or marketing can add another source of volatility.
Manufacturing, recalls and supply chains
Quality findings, shortages, plant shutdowns and product recalls can interrupt sales and increase costs. Essential demand does not guarantee that a company can manufacture and distribute a product.
Geography and currency
Global drugmakers report results in one currency while selling in many markets. Exchange-rate moves, local price controls and differing approval standards can change reported earnings independently of underlying prescription demand.
How to assess whether a pharmaceutical stock is defensive
Use the following sequence before rotating money from technology into a drugmaker:
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute- Define the technology exposure. List the holdings, their weights and common factors such as unprofitable growth, semiconductor cycles, advertising budgets, cloud spending or high valuation multiples.
- Identify the healthcare exposure. Determine whether the candidate is a diversified healthcare fund, a pharmaceutical basket or a single company. Check therapeutic areas, geographic revenue and the five largest product contributions.
- Test demand durability. Separate recurring prescriptions and chronic-care products from elective, one-time or highly discretionary treatments. Confirm whether demand is sensitive to insurance coverage or hospital budgets.
- Map the patent schedule. Record major exclusivity expirations, expected generic or biosimilar competition and how much revenue each product represents. A near-term patent cliff can outweigh sector defensiveness.
- Review the pipeline. Examine late-stage trials, regulatory milestones, launch timing and the consequences if a leading candidate fails. Do not value unapproved products as certain revenue.
- Check policy exposure. Read disclosures about government pricing, reimbursement, formulary access, litigation and political proposals relevant to the company’s markets.
- Compare financial resilience. Look at operating cash flow, debt maturities, interest costs, research spending and the company’s ability to fund trials without issuing shares or cutting essential investment.
- Compare valuation with durability. Use forward earnings or cash-flow measures alongside realistic growth assumptions. A defensive business bought at an extreme multiple can still deliver a poor result if the multiple contracts.
- Model concentration. Estimate the portfolio’s outcome if the technology sector falls while the healthcare stock is flat, down with the market or affected by a company-specific shock. This is more informative than assuming a fixed hedge ratio.
- Set a rebalancing rule. Decide in advance what allocation range, valuation threshold or risk limit will trigger a change. Avoid making a sector switch solely after a sharp headline-driven decline.
Portfolio construction: rotation versus diversification
Moving completely from technology to one pharmaceutical company replaces one concentration with another. A diversified healthcare allocation can reduce dependence on a single patent, trial or management decision, while retaining some exposure to medicine demand. It may also introduce insurers, providers and equipment businesses whose risks differ from those of drugmakers.
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Investors should compare the proposed healthcare weight with existing exposures in broad-market funds. A supposedly new allocation may already be a large holding through an index. Also check whether technology and healthcare companies share sensitivity to the same factor, such as expensive growth valuations, global supply chains or changes in real interest rates.
Rebalancing can be more robust than tactical prediction: set a target range, add to an underweight sector when it falls outside that range and account for taxes, transaction costs and the investor’s time horizon. The appropriate mix depends on objectives, risk tolerance, liquidity needs and jurisdiction; the historical figures above do not determine an individual allocation.
Long-term support does not remove near-term risk
Demographics can support healthcare demand. BlackRock, citing S&P Global Market Intelligence, projects that 20% of the U.S. population will be older than 65 by 2030. BlackRock also reported that 89% of S&P 500 healthcare companies exceeded earnings expectations in all four quarters of 2025. Those observations describe broad sector conditions and a specific historical reporting period; they do not guarantee that every pharmaceutical company will grow or outperform.
Population aging can increase treatment demand, but investors still need to ask who captures that spending, at what price and after rebates, research costs, manufacturing expense and regulation. A favorable industry trend is not a substitute for company-level analysis.
Common mistakes when seeking a defensive substitute for technology
- Confusing “less cyclical” with “risk-free.” Healthcare shares can fall in market-wide panics.
- Using a healthcare index as a pharma proxy. Providers, insurers and equipment makers have different earnings drivers.
- Assuming inverse performance. Low correlation is not a permanent negative correlation.
- Ignoring valuation. A stable business can still be an overpriced stock.
- Overlooking one-product dependence. Essential demand does not protect a company from a patent loss or failed trial.
- Reacting after the move. A late rotation can buy healthcare after a defensive premium has already been priced in.
- Neglecting taxes and costs. Selling appreciated technology holdings may create taxable gains and reduce the benefit of a tactical switch.
Bottom line
Pharmaceutical stocks are potentially defensive when technology declines because medicine demand is generally less tied to economic growth, and healthcare outperformed information technology in several historical drawdowns. They are not a guaranteed safe haven, an inverse technology position or a uniform asset class. The outcome depends on the cause of the technology selloff, the healthcare benchmark, each company’s patents and pipeline, policy exposure, valuation and your portfolio’s existing concentration.
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