In this article, we will highlight Billionaire Cliff Asness’ Top 10 Healthcare Stock Picks.
Cliff Asness is a billionaire investor and the co-founder and chief investment officer of AQR Capital Management, a quantitative hedge fund. Asness, who owns about 30% stake in the firm, is worth an estimated $6.3 billion, making him one of the wealthiest hedge fund managers in the world. The firm he co-founded in 1998 now oversees $249 billion in assets, which is an all-time high, especially after attracting a record $75 billion in new capital in 2025 alone.
In that year, the firm’s flagship Apex multi strategy fund returned 19.6%, which Bloomberg said was largely driven by stock-picking trades. This growth outpaced most quant peers and more than doubled the S&P 500’s 14.4% annualized return over the last five years. AQR’s market-neutral Adaptive Equities Strategy did even better, gaining 24.4% for the 12 months of 2025.
Much of that turnaround boils down to AQR integrating artificial intelligence deeply into its operations. According to a March 16 analysis by Forbes Magazine, AQR has expanded machine-learning techniques across research and trading, and that AI is now helping to detect complex interactions between factors, recalibrate their weights in real time, and mine large datasets for predictive signals. Forbes quoted Asness himself describing the shift as AQR having “surrendered more to the machine.”
Incidentally, that same AI wave is now moving through the healthcare sector. Just one example, a BioSpace report revealed that one giant pharmaceutical company estimated to have slashed billions in spending across R&D and administrative operations over the past 12 months to February 2026. The report quoted the company’s CEO, who said: “We didn’t just cut cost, what we did is we improved productivity. And the main lever – of course, there [were] simplification efforts that also took place – but the main lever was the successful deployment of AI.”
Because of the AI aspect and several other factors, there is growing interest in healthcare stocks. For instance, the S&P 500 Healthcare Index is up 3.74% year-to-date as of this writing, and has gained 12.6% since April 29. Even AQR’s own Q1 2026 13F filing shows the fund raised its stake in one healthcare name by 15%, which elevated the stock to AQR’s sixth largest holding by value.
Against that backdrop, this article takes a look into Asness’ top 10 healthcare stock picks.
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Our Methodology
We searched through AQR Capital Management’s Q1 2026 portfolio and identified all healthcare stocks, which we ranked based on the fund’s stake in them and picked the top 10. We also considered the overall hedge fund sentiment using Q1 2026 13F holdings data from Insider Monkey’s database. The list is in ascending order of the value of AQR Capital Management’s stake in each stock.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research shows we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Insider Monkey’s quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 599.2% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 372 percentage points (see more details here).
Billionaire Cliff Asness’ Top Healthcare Stock Picks
10. Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)
AQR Capital Management’s Stake Value: $490,707,847
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 48
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) is one of billionaire Cliff Asness’ top 10 healthcare stock picks. On June 26, Bernstein SocGen analyst Eve Burstein resumed coverage of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) with a Market Perform rating and a price target of $185.
According to Burstein, the backdrop to this coverage resumption is a company that endured a genuinely difficult stretch. She noted that beginning in early 2025, China placed the company on its Unreliable Entities List and restricted imports of its sequencing instruments. This was a double blow that hit the company’s revenue estimates hard through much of last year, Burstein said.
Rather than staying stuck, Illumina leaned into its next-generation NovaSeq X sequencer and an expanding portfolio of clinical applications, including uses in cancer detection, rare disease diagnosis, and reproductive health. That pivot, in Burstein’s view, has fueled a significant recovery.
Illumina also benefited greatly from many things going right for the life science tools and diagnostics sector, Burstein noted. She stated that the sector is seeing new drug approvals and trial starts. Even funding is better in the last 12 months versus the 12 months prior. The analyst is of the view that the increased funding will boost customer spend especially while AI drives demand for semiconductor-related tools.
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) is a life sciences technology company. It develops, manufactures, and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function, including DNA sequencing and array-based platforms.
9. Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY)
AQR Capital Management’s Stake Value: $536,130,025
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 42
Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) is one of billionaire Cliff Asness’ top 10 healthcare stock picks. On June 22, Truist Securities analyst Srikripa Devarakonda raised the price target on Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) from $103 to $105, while keeping a Hold rating on the stock.
Devarakonda said the target increase was partly driven by a one-time financial boost coming from Incyte winning a dispute with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The dispute was over how Incyte’s inflammation drug Opzelura should be classified for Medicaid rebate purposes. Incyte winning the dispute resulted in a non-cash settlement worth about $246 million that the company will add to Opzelura’s net sales in Q2 2026.
On top of the settlement, Truist also revised its model to reflect a roughly 5% improvement in Opzelura’s gross-to-net ratio going forward. Put simply, Incyte will effectively retain more revenue from Opzelura sales after accounting for rebates and discounts.
The analyst added that they updated their outlook on VGA039, which is Incyte’s experimental drug for von Willebrand disease (VWD). Truist projects that VGA039 could reach approximately $1 billion in peak worldwide sales by 2036, and that international markets will make up around 20% of that total. A key reason Truist is optimistic about VGA039 is that the drug is designed to work across all subtypes of VWD.
Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) is a biopharmaceutical company. It discovers, develops, and commercializes proprietary therapeutics, with a primary focus on oncology and inflammation. Its portfolio includes Jakafi (ruxolitinib), an approved treatment for myelofibrosis and polycythemia vera, and Opzelura, a topical formulation for atopic dermatitis and vitiligo.
8. Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL)
AQR Capital Management’s Stake Value: $561,676,342
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 41
Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL) is one of billionaire Cliff Asness’ top 10 healthcare stock picks. On June 25, Truist analyst Gregory Renza downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy with a price target of $54, up from $51, after assuming coverage of the name.
Truist resumed the coverage because Renza is stepping in for Asthika Goonewardene. Incidentally, Goonewardene had been consistently bullish on the stock, and whose last action was holding a Buy and raising the price target to $51 from $44.55 on January 14.
Renza argued that the reason for the Hold rating was pipeline uncertainty, specifically around zanzalintinib. Zanzalintinib is the next-generation cancer drug that Exelixis is developing as a long-term successor to cabozantinib, its flagship product, and which currently drives the bulk of the company’s revenues.
The analyst noted that the FDA is currently reviewing Exelixis’s application for zanzalintinib in combination with atezolizumab as a treatment for previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer. This application is supported by positive data from the Phase 3 STELLAR-303 trial. However, regulatory approval alone does not guarantee commercial success, and the broader clinical program still has several major data readouts pending, Renza noted.
Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL) is an oncology-focused biotechnology company. It discovers, develops, and commercializes small molecule therapies for cancer treatment. Its lead product is cabozantinib, which is sold as Cabometyx and is approved for renal cell carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and differentiated thyroid cancer.
7. Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX)
AQR Capital Management’s Stake Value: $650,659,396
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 53
Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX) is one of billionaire Cliff Asness’ top 10 healthcare stock picks. On June 8, Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX) presented new data at the Psych Congress Elevate conference in Las Vegas showing that valbenazine delivered clinically meaningful benefits to 94% of patients over 48 weeks of treatment. Valbenazine, which the company sells as INGREZZA, is a once-daily drug for tardive dyskinesia (TD), a neurological movement disorder that causes repetitive, uncontrolled movements of the face, tongue, limbs, or torso, and is estimated to affect at least 800,000 adults in the US.
The company said the findings come from a new post-hoc analysis of the Phase 3 KINECT-4 trial. In earlier KINECT-4 results, 59% of patients reached the strictest definition of remission, which means absent or minimal involuntary movements across all seven body regions measured by the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS). The new analysis looked specifically at patients who did not cross that threshold and found that 86% of them still achieved at least a 30% reduction in AIMS score, and 67% achieved at least a 50% reduction. This is what brings the combined meaningful-benefit figure to 94%.
Alongside the trial data, Neurocrine also presented findings from a separate retrospective analysis of more than 176,000 Medicare patients newly diagnosed with TD. That analysis found that 90% of those patients had at least one liver-related risk factor. It also found that 44% had three or more, including conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and hyperlipidemia, all of which can quietly compromise liver function over time.
Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX) is a biopharmaceutical company. It discovers, develops, and commercializes treatments for neurological and endocrine-related diseases and disorders.
6. McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK)
AQR Capital Management’s Stake Value: $784,246,271
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 73
McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) is one of billionaire Cliff Asness’ top 10 healthcare stock picks. On June 23, McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) issued a recap of its annual McKesson ideaShare 2026 event and stated that it spotlighted AI-powered solutions for independent pharmacies. The conference was held between June 18 and June 21 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, and it brought together nearly 5,000 independent community pharmacy professionals from across the US.
McKesson noted that the event centered on helping independent pharmacies navigate a rapidly shifting healthcare landscape. It added that major themes were the integration of artificial intelligence into pharmacy operations, the expansion of patient care services beyond traditional prescription dispensing, and the growing importance of community-based care as a driver of better health outcomes.
For the first time at ideaShare, McKesson hosted a Product Showcase where attendees could evaluate new tools and vote on the solutions they believed would have the greatest impact on their businesses and patients. The company noted that this shift gave pharmacy owners a more direct role in shaping the products and services offered to them.
Meanwhile, on June 2, McKesson closed a strategic investment deal with funds managed by affiliates of Apollo, in which Apollo acquired a minority stake in McKesson’s Medical-Surgical Solutions (MMS) business. The transaction had been announced about six weeks earlier, on April 20.
According to McKesson, Apollo invested $1.25 billion in convertible preferred equity of MMS in exchange for an approximately 13% minority interest. The transaction valued the MMS business at roughly $13 billion in total enterprise value. McKesson said it retains both operating control and majority ownership of MMS, and will continue to consolidate the unit’s results in its financial reporting.
McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) is a healthcare distribution and services company that distributes pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health information technology.
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