NEW DELHI: Pharma stocks were trading with gains during the early trade on Friday, defying the bearish market sentiment.

Shares of Lupin and Aarti Drugs zoomed up to 6 per cent on BSE during Friday's trade.

Fortis Healthcare (up 3.64 per cent), Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company (up 3.30 per cent), Gufic BioSciences (up 2.56 per cent), Aurobindo Pharma (up 2.16 per cent), Strides Shasun (up 1.98 per cent), Granules India (up 1.96 per cent), Piramal Enterprises (up 1.85 per cent), Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (up 1.58 per cent) and Cipla (up 1.45 per cent) too appeared among the gainers.

The BSE Healthcare index was trading 1.26 per cent up at 13,728 around 10:35 am (IST).

However, Sequent Scientific (down 5.76 per cent), Torrent Pharmaceuticals (down 1.48 per cent), Healthcare Global Enterprises (down 1.17 per cent), Narayana Hrudayalaya (down 1.01 per cent) and Nectar Lifesciences (down 0.87 per cent) were in the red around the same time.

Equity benchmarks were trading flat, tracking weakness in global equities after US threat of new tariffs on China stoked fears about an all-out trade confrontation between the world's two biggest economies.

However, buying in select bank, pharma, FMCG, auto and oil & gas stocks were giving the bourses some strength.

The NSE Nifty50 index was down 5 points at 10,320, while the BSE Sensex was 6 points down at 33,591.

Among the 30 stocks in the Sensex index, 10 were trading in green, while 21 were in the red.

ICICI Bank and Adani ports were leading the pack of gainers in the Sesnex index.