Which Pharmaceutical Company Earned the Most Revenue in 2021?
The pharmaceutical company that earned the most in 2021 was Pfizer, with revenue of $81.288 billion, nearly doubling the $41.91 billion in revenue the company made in 2020. How much do these many billions in revenue amount to every second? Pfizer made $2,578 for every second of 2021. That’s 355 times as much as someone making the national minimum wage would earn in an hour!
Pfizer’s huge increase in revenue can be attributed to creating an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 that holds 70% of the U.S. and European markets as well as creating Paxlovid, the antiviral pill of choice to treat COVID symptoms. The company expects to make more than $50 billion from just these two medications in 2022 when all is said and done.
Read on to see which other major pharmaceutical companies made the top ten list for most revenue earned in 2021. All of the top pharma companies made more than $1,400 every second of the year.
How Much the Top 10 Pharmaceutical Companies Earn in Revenue Every Second
Pfizer: $2,578 Sinopharm: $1,917 AbbVie: $1,782 Janssen (of Johnson & Johnson): $1,651 Novartis: $1,637 Roche: $1,562 Merck & Co.: $1,544 GlaxoSmithKline: $1,488 Bristol Myers Squibb: $1,471 Sanofi: $1,413
What Is the Biggest Pharmaceutical Company in the World?
Johnson & Johnson is the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world in terms of market cap, with the company valued at $471.26 billion. Johnson & Johnson’s total revenue in 2021 was $94 billion. While this amount surpassed Pfizer’s $81 billion in revenue, the revenue from its pharmaceutical division only accounted for $52 billion of the total revenue earned by the pharma company. Janssen Pharmaceuticals is the division that is dedicated to the research and development of pharmaceuticals.
The revenue made by the Janssen pharmaceutical company amounted to earnings of $1,651 every second, putting the company in fourth place on our list of the highest-earning pharmaceutical companies. The many billions that Janssen earned over the course of 2021 can also be attributed to creating a vaccine for COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson created the world’s first single-shot vaccine for COVID and has shipped hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine to the U.S., the U.K., and other nations.
The life-saving medications that pharmaceutical companies create can come with a hefty price tag. Medicare coverage, a type of health insurance, can help pay for expensive prescription drugs for those who are 65 or older or have a qualifying disability that keeps them from working. If you’re interested in Medicare coverage and how it can benefit you or a loved one, check out our Medicare guide to learn more.
The 25 Pharma Companies That Make the Most Every Second
Rank Company Headquarters Revenue Earned per Second in 2021 1 Pfizer United States $2,578 2 Sinopharm* China $1,917 3 AbbVie United States $1,782 4 Janssen* United States $1,651 5 Novartis Switzerland $1,637 6 Roche* Switzerland $1,562 7 Merck & Co. United States $1,544 8 GlaxoSmithKline* United Kingdom $1,488 9 Bristol Myers Squibb United States $1,471 10 Sanofi France $1,413 11 AstraZeneca United Kingdom $1,186 12 Thermo Fisher Scientific* United States $967 13 Takeda Pharmaceutical Japan $923 14 Eli Lilly United States $898 15 Gilead Sciences United States $866 16 Amgen United States $824 17 Boehringer Ingelheim Germany $773 18 BioNTech Germany $712 19 Novo Nordisk Denmark $711 20 Bayer* Germany $687 21 Sinovac China $615 22 Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Germany $602 23 Moderna United States $586 24 Viatris United States $565 25 Regeneron Pharmaceuticals United States $510
*Based on revenue earned by the company’s pharmaceutical division