The fund had 1.5 percent of its 2.7 billion pounds in assets in Reckitt stock at the end of August.

Woodford, who left Invesco Perpetual earlier this year to set up his own company, had been a shareholder in the company for over a decade, the money manager said in a blog post.

"We continue to view Reckitts as a great business with a very strong management team and an excellent product line-up," it said.

"Such a high quality business deserves a high market rating but the shares have recently become too expensive to continue to justify their position in the portfolio."

(Reporting by Nishant Kumar; editing by Simon Jessop)