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Most Productive Pharma Companies

The Most Productive Pharma Companies of the Past 10 Years

In the United States, Janssen has been recognized as the most productive pharmaceutical company of the last 10 years. Janssen, which is more known in the US under the name of its parent company Johnson & Johnson, appeared to have had most new medicines newly approved in the last decade. According to data from the InnoThink Center for Research in Biomedical Innovation, 278 new medicines have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the US regulatory body for approving new medicines. With 13 new medicines Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) leads the list (see below).

According to Forbes, which published the ranking “This data gives insight into how productive different drug companies have been over this time period — one during which, generally speaking, research and development in the pharmaceutical industry has been below the level it needed to be. Obviously, a count of the number of new molecular entities (industry jargon for brand new drugs) is not the only measure of innovation. A truly great medicine is worth a whole lot of me-too pills. But it’s a start.”

The Most Productive Drug Firms
CompanyNumber of new medicines
Johnson & Johnson13
GlaxoSmithKline11
Novartis10
Pfizer10
Bristol-Myers Squibb9
Merck&Co9
Hoffmann-La Roche8
Amgen5
Bayer5
Genzyme5
AstraZeneca4
Boehringer-Ingelheim4
CSL Behring4
Eisai4
Forest4
Genentech4
Lilly4
Shire4
Takeda4
Astellas3
Baxter3
Biogen Idec3
BioMarin3
Gilead3
Mylan3
Regeneron3
Sanofi3
Schering-Plough3
Wyeth3
Amylin2
Aventis2
Cangene2
Celgene2
Ferring2
Lundbeck2
Novo Nordisk2
Salix2
Sanofi Aventis2
Schwarz2
Teva2
Vertex2

Source: InnoThink Center for Research in Biomedical Innovation, FDA
Note: Sanofi, Sanofi-Synthelabo, and Sanofi-Aventis should probably be counted as one company. Pfizer acquired Wyeth in 2009.