(Reuters) — Investment manager T. Rowe Price Group said yesterday that it closed its Health Sciences Fund to new investors amid a faster pace of inflows, reflecting the sector’s popularity.
Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price said the fund and similar portfolios for institutional clients, focused on healthcare, medicine and life sciences, held $14.8 billion as of April 30. That was up 66.3% since the end of 2013, including $1.8 billion of inflows.
If flows were to continue at the current pace, portfolio manager Taymour Tamaddon said in a statement, "it could eventually strain our ability to invest efficiently and result in a less effective investment strategy."
Data from Thomson Reuters Lipper unit shows that healthcare and biotech funds, with total assets of $114 billion, had net deposits of $12 billion so far this year through May 27.
That was by far the largest inflow among all sector equity funds. Natural resources funds were in second place with $5.7 billion of inflow in the same period.
The largest fund in the healthcare and biotech sector is the $50 billion Vanguard Health Care Fund, Lipper said.