Glenmark Pharmaceuticals' landmark $2 billion licensing deal with U.S. drug giant AbbVie for its cancer asset ISB 2001 triggered a sharp rally in the stock on July 11, hitting a 10% upper circuit. But the biggest beneficiaries weren’t the retail investors—it was India’s top mutual funds that had already placed their bets well in advance.

Data shows that mutual fund holdings in Glenmark Pharma rose from 9.1% in June 2023 to 14.6% by March 2025, reflecting rising institutional confidence in the company’s innovation and R&D pipeline. This quiet but strategic accumulation stands in stark contrast to retail investors, who steadily reduced their exposure. Public shareholding fell from 20.4% to 15.56% during the same period, indicating that retail participation waned even as the company built a strong drug pipeline behind the scenes.

Promoters continue to own 46%, while foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have held steady at around 23%. Among FIIs, Smallcap World Fund cut its stake from 4.84% to 3.21%, while Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global maintained a consistent 3.25% holding.

The deal with AbbVie, which includes a $700 million upfront payment and up to $1.2 billion in milestone-based payouts, validates the conviction of mutual fund managers who identified the undervaluation of Glenmark’s R&D efforts early on.

Mutual Funds That Won Big:
HDFC Mutual Fund led the pack. Its Midcap Opportunities Fund held over 1.06 crore shares, while its Manufacturing Fund and Balanced Advantage Fund held 12 lakh and 8.85 lakh shares, respectively.

UTI Value Fund had 9 lakh shares, Bandhan Small-cap Fund held 8.62 lakh, and Aditya Birla Sun Life Midcap Fund had 7.01 lakh shares.

Mahindra Manulife Mutual Fund was a key buyer in June 2025, with its Multi Cap Fund adding 8.45 lakh shares and its Small Cap Fund disclosing another 3.6 lakh.

Invesco India Mid Cap Fund raised its stake by nearly 20%, picking up 2.74 lakh shares.

Notable individual investors also backed Glenmark. Prashant Jain’s 3P India Equity Fund held just over 1%, while Ashish Dhawan had 1.77% as of March 2025, down from 2.55% in September 2024.

This sharp contrast in behavior between retail and institutional investors reveals a clear lesson: while the broader public overlooked Glenmark’s research-led potential, mutual funds acted early, stayed patient, and ultimately reaped outsized rewards from the blockbuster licensing agreement.