Pharma Companies Ranked by Revenue per Second

Pharmaceuticals in America are notoriously expensive, sometimes to the point of being out of reach for those who truly need them. For example, in 2019, people in the U.S. paid an average of $30,808 for a 28-day supply of Harvoni, a medication for hepatitis C. The same medication costs $4,944 in Chile and $14,720 in Switzerland! What about Lantus, a long-acting insulin for diabetes? The cost of 5 syringes is $59 in Greece, $80 in Germany, and $107 in the United Arab Emirates. In the United States, 5 syringes cost a staggering $419! The global pharmaceutical market earned over $1.4 trillion in 2021. $574 billion of that belonged to the United States, making it by far the most dominant player in the field. So just how profitable are pharmaceutical companies? The team at Insurist has created this striking visual guide to how much the biggest pharmaceutical companies make per second.

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The mos profitable pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, made a mind-blowing $2,578 per second in 2021! Pfizer made $81.288 billion in 2021, nearly double the profit it made in 2020. Pfizer’s massive surge in revenue is attributed to creating the mRNA vaccine for COVID, which has claimed 70% of the U.S. and European markets. They also created Paxlovid, the antiviral of choice used to treat coronavirus symptoms. So thank goodness for Pfizer – just imagine how many lives Pfizer scientists have saved. Overall I really love how they chose to visualize the revenue – it is creative, eye-catching, and aesthetically pleasing!