Johnson & Johnson remains the most valuable pharmaceutical brand, according to consultancy Brand Finance, beating out all other big pharma companies by a wide margin.
Pictured: Johnson & Johnson office in Madrid, Spain/iStock, BrasilNut1
For the fifth year in a row, Johnson & Johnson is the pharma industry’s most valuable company and its strongest brand, despite sustaining an approximately 5% drop in brand value, according to the Healthcare 2023 report from consultancy Brand Finance.
With a nearly $12.8 billion brand value, J&J beat out all other big pharma companies by a wide margin. Roche came in second place at almost $8.5 billion, while Pfizer trailed third at $6.2 billion. Despite keeping their spots as the industry’s top trifecta, all three companies took notable hits in their brand values from last year. In 2022, J&J was valued at nearly $13.4 billion, Roche at more than $8.9 billion and Pfizer at a little more than $6.3 billion.
These declines are in line with “a broader industry trend that has impacted many of the largest pharmaceutical brands in 2023,” Brand Finance wrote in its summary analysis of this year’s ranking. “Across the 25 pharma brands included in this ranking there was an average 2% reduction in brand value year-on-year.”
Six companies in Brand Finance’s top 10 list posted lower valuation this year than in 2022. Most notably, AbbVie went from a little more than $5 billion last year to nearly $3.9 billion in 2023. The company fell from sixth place in 2022 to tenth place this year, nearly dropping out of the top 10.
Bucking this trend, however, is Merck which claimed the fourth spot in Brand Finance’s 2023 ranking, up from seventh place in 2022. Last year, the company had a brand value of approximately $4.6 billion, which jumped around 25% to reach nearly $5.8 billion this year.
Lilly and Sanofi also saw year-on-year improvements. The Indiana pharma broke into the top 10 by growing its value from almost $3.4 billion in 2022 to nearly $3.9 billion this year. Meanwhile, the French drugmaker saw a 2% bump, from a little more than $4 billion last year to more than $4.1 billion in 2023.
The industry’s highest-growth companies, however, were not in the top 10. CSL, which ranked 21st, saw a 32% increase in its brand value, which sat at $1.3 billion this year. According to Brand Finance, the company’s buyout of Vifor Pharma, launch of its hemophilia B gene therapy Hemgenix (etranacogene dezaparvovec-drlb) and overall expansion of its immunoglobulin portfolio contributed heavily to this growth.
Novo Nordisk, whose brand value jumped 31% to $3.1 billion this year, is just behind CSL as the second-fastest growing company. This was driven by the company’s strong promotion and higher production of Wegovy and Ozempic, its best-selling weight-loss treatments.
Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in metro Manila, Philippines. He can be reached at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.
