2005 Top Pharma Companies

Welcome to the fifth annual Contract Pharma Top Pharmaceutical & Biopharmaceutical Companies report. Our editorial staff has gathered information from annual reports, interviews, and analyst coverage to compile a list of the previous year’s Top 20 players in the Pharma arena.

The Vioxx debacle shook up many companies on the list, starting with Merck (#5), of course. While that company’s 2004 sales were pummeled-the drug was withdrawn in the last quarter of the year, but Merck did slip behind J&J (#4)-the chain reaction, both in PR and sales, is clearly shaking our industry up.

Pfizer (#1), which acquired Pharmacia in 2003 in part because of the Celebrex/Bextra Cox-2 franchise, faces an array of challenges the scale of which no Pharma company has ever seen. Being 50% larger than your next closest competitor sure can help sometimes.

The Top 20 ranks see some new faces this year: Sanofi-Aventis, the merger of last year’s #7 and #13 companies, has yielded a new #3. The Franco-Prussian druggernaut will stake a long-term claim to the top 3 if Acomplia finds its way to market (and gets cleared for long-term usage).

As I researched the ranks for a company to bring up into the Top 20, I revised my opinion on whether “insulin counts” and brought in Novo Nordisk for the first time (#17). That addition helps round out the Top 20, while other companies still percolate below.

Contributors

Editor: Gil Y. Roth
Associate Editor: Kristin Brooks
Contributing Editor: Derek B. Lowe

Top 20 Pharmaceutical Companies based on 2004 pharma revenues

Note: In all Top Company profiles, dollar amounts are in millions.