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Who is the world's most profitable pharmaceutical company? The answer was revealed when the 2024 Fortune Global 500 list was released on August 5.

According to statistics, the total profit of the world's top 500 companies in 2023 will be close to 3 trillion US dollars, an increase of 2.3% over the previous year. Among them, pharmaceutical companies account for two seats in the top 50 most profitable companies, namely Johnson & Johnson of the United States and Novartis of Switzerland. The profits of these two companies in 2023 will reach 35.153 billion US dollars and 14.850 billion US dollars respectively.

In the past 2023, the profit growth rates of Johnson & Johnson and Novartis both increased by more than 90% year-on-year, with Novartis' profit growth reaching 113.5%.

Both companies have split their businesses. After Johnson & Johnson completed the spin-off of its consumer healthcare business in 2023, it has focused on its two major businesses, medical technology and pharmaceuticals. In 2023, Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical business achieved revenue of US$54.759 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%; its medical technology business achieved revenue of US$30.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%.

Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical business mainly focuses on the fields of autoimmunity, tumors, neuroscience, infection, pulmonary hypertension, cardiovascular and metabolism. Among them, autoimmunity and oncology businesses are equally matched, contributing US$18.052 billion and US$17.661 billion in revenue respectively, becoming the core pillar driving Johnson & Johnson's performance growth.

Novartis also successfully spun off its generic drug business Sandoz in 2023, thus transforming itself into a pure innovative drug company. The company adjusted its original focus on five major therapeutic areas of cardiovascular, immunology, neuroscience, solid tumors, and hematology to four, namely cardiovascular-renal-metabolic, immunology, neuroscience, and oncology.

The cardiovascular field will bring Novartis $6.391 billion in revenue in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 36%. Novartis's strategy in the cardiovascular field is to focus on quality rather than quantity. The company's star product, sacubitril valsartan sodium tablets (Entresto), is the company's best-selling product, with revenue reaching $6.035 billion in 2023. This product is a new anti-heart failure drug and the world's first angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor.

On the other hand, among the Fortune Global 500 loss-making companies in 2024, 33 companies failed to make a profit, and one of them was a pharmaceutical company, namely Germany's Bayer Group. In 2023, the company lost $3.179 billion. Bayer has three major divisions: prescription drugs, crop science, and health consumer products. Crop science is the key to the company's performance. Since 2024, the company has been undergoing internal restructuring and layoffs.

Overall, there are 14 pharmaceutical companies on the Fortune Global 500 list in 2024, including Eli Lilly of the United States and Novo Nordisk of Denmark.

In 2023, the two companies' operating revenues will be US$34.124 billion and US$33.703 billion respectively, and their profits will be US$5.24 billion and US$12.143 billion respectively. Among them, Eli Lilly's profit fell by 16.1% year-on-year, while Novo Nordisk's profit increased by 54.7% year-on-year.

Although Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are at the bottom of the industry rankings among the 14 pharmaceutical companies on the list, it is just around the corner for these two companies to be among the top ten global pharmaceutical companies, because they each hold blockbuster GLP-1 weight loss drug products. Novo Nordisk's semaglutide is the world's first long-acting weight loss drug approved for marketing, and Eli Lilly's telpotide is the world's first dual-target weight loss drug approved for marketing. It is worth mentioning that these two drugs are also seen as drugs with the potential to challenge the status of the world's "new drug king" in the future. Both drugs are competing to develop new indications.

In 2023, Novo Nordisk's sales of semaglutide (including weight loss and glucose-lowering indications) reached US$21.2 billion, accounting for more than 60% of the company's total revenue.