Dethroned? Thanks to a cancer drug, biotech has outpaced even AI stocks
A significant reshuffle in megatrend performance: while the previous period was characterized mainly by a rotation out of AI infrastructure into software and cloud services, from the second half of August biotechnology/healthcare outperformed alongside AI infrastructure, while rate-sensitive themes and those linked to consumption and the energy transition weakened.
The VIG MegaTrend Equity Investment Fund covers a broad investment universe: demographic change (aging societies, emerging markets), efficiency gains driven by resource scarcity (renewable resources, energy efficiency), urbanization, as well as technological change and innovation. Of these, only innovation-focused megatrends managed to close the past month slightly in positive territory, while the demographic subgroup fell by nearly 4% and the environment-focused group by 3% amid the consolidation that followed the summer optimism. The emphasis shifted from broad-based optimism surrounding AI to specific, company-level breakthroughs and macroeconomic caution. Within the categories, however, much larger differences emerged: healthcare and genomics themes, for example, performed particularly strongly, while tourism, luxury, infrastructure and classic green-energy segments came under pressure.
The most important corporate catalyst of the month was the positive Phase 3 result of Moderna and Merck’s personalized mRNA therapy against melanoma. The news gave a particularly strong boost to genomics/biotechnology stocks: Moderna’s market capitalization rose by more than $30 billion in a single day. The market began to price in not merely the success of a melanoma treatment, but the validation of the potential oncological application of mRNA technology. This lifted the year-to-date (YTD) performance of Genomic Revolution to 78.3%, now exceeding that of the semiconductor sector (Semiconductors, +77.0%).
Alongside AI, biotechnology innovation is increasingly becoming one of the most important growth stories of 2026.
Dethroned: genomics has overtaken semiconductors
Top 2 trends in the MegaTrend universe this year, Dec 31, 2025 = 100
Within the AI universe, however, infrastructure once again took center stage. Nvidia’s August results and its expectation of 70% revenue growth next year, followed by Broadcom’s September report of 221% growth in AI chip revenue, both confirmed that the AI data-center investment cycle remains strong. At the same time, the release of GPT-6 and market fears about a slowdown in AI development put software companies under pressure again in September, bringing the performance gap between hardware and software within AI back to the fore.
In parallel, the higher interest-rate environment, rising oil prices and geopolitical uncertainty weighed increasingly heavily on longer-duration and financing-intensive megatrends. Over the past month, the weakness of Solar/Clean Energy (-8.4%), Rare Earth (-9.8%), Luxury (-8.1%) and especially Travel Tech (-13.6%) clearly shows that investors are currently pricing structural growth stories far more selectively.
Overall, looking at one-year performance, the gap between the three main megatrend categories has thus closed: within the universe, what we are seeing is not a general unwinding of growth stories but their further differentiation. Areas demonstrating provable technological and scientific breakthroughs, such as AI infrastructure and genomics, continue to attract significant capital, while megatrends burdened by high interest-rate sensitivity, regulatory or financing risks are trading at an ever-wider discount.
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