Pharma and healthcare funds: all 17 are up over the year

The number

Every one of the 17 pharma and healthcare funds with a full one-year record made money in the year to 1 October 2026. The median gained 17.50%; the weakest, Tata India Pharma & Healthcare, still made 7.91%.

That is unusual in a year when the median fund in the whole Sectoral/Thematic category (256 funds) returned 1.25%, and when 30 of 33 large-cap funds lost money.

All figures are for the Direct plan, Growth option, computed from daily NAVs to 1 October 2026 (30 September for one fund). Returns of a year or more are compounded annual rates. We counted funds whose names say pharma, healthcare or health & wellness; there are 19, and two have no returns yet.

The ranking

Four of the top five are recent launches with no three-year record yet; the older funds with a five-year record are bunched between 13.5% and 17.8% a year.

What the longer record says

Twelve funds have three years. Their median is about 20.8% a year, with a tight range apart from one outlier: eleven funds sit between 17.6% and 22.8%, and HDFC Pharma and Healthcare is at 30.26%. Eight funds have five years, with a median of about 15.3% a year; SBI Healthcare Opportunities leads on 17.78%.

The one-year table and the three-year table disagree about two funds. ICICI Prudential Healthcare is second-last over one year (7.97%) but fifth over three (21.06%). Nippon India Pharma is near the bottom on both clocks.

Risk

Pharma funds were calmer than the sector average: the median volatility was 13.5% against 15.6% for the whole Sectoral/Thematic category. The three-year falls were mostly shallow, between 13.5% (SBI) and 17.1% (ITI). The exception is quant Healthcare, with 17.4% volatility and a worst three-year fall of 25.2% even though its return is middling.

Reading this

The strength of the last year is broad: every fund gained, so it is a story about the sector, not about fund selection. A sector fund puts one bet in one basket, and the best-ranked funds this year are the ones with the shortest records. What the table cannot say is whether the sector will keep this lead.

To see what these funds hold, see pharma stocks in mutual fund portfolios. To compare the sector's counterpart, see technology funds, where the picture is the reverse.

Returns are historical and computed from NAVs; they are not a forecast. Past returns do not indicate future performance.