In the battle of titans, Pfizer has emerged on top as the most valuable pharma company by market cap for 2018.

According to an analysis conducted by GlobalData, Pfizer replaced Swiss-based pharma giant Roche at the top of the mountain with a market cap of $253.2 billion. Roche, which came in at number 2 on the list, had a market cap of $212.5 billion, according to the report. Roche and Pfizer are the only two pharmaceutical companies to cross the $200 billion market cap threshold. While Pfizer has the largest market cap, GlobalData’s survey shows that Roche actually generated more revenue during 2018, $58.1 billion to $53.6 billion.

Merck & Company took the third spot with a market cap of $198.7 billion and Novartis came in right behind in fourth place with a market cap of $198.4 billion. Illinois-based AbbVierounds out the top five with a market cap of $139.6 billion – nearly $60 billion lower than Novartis.

In its report, GlobalData said the pharma sector’s 2018 vs 2017 year-on-year performance was disappointing. The survey noted that 14 companies in the top 25 list recorded negative growth with six companies seeing their market cap fall more than 15 percent.

There were bright spots, though. Several companies showed double-digit market cap growth, including CSL, Eli Lilly, Merck and Abbott, which reported market cap growth of 32 percent, 29 percent, 28 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

"The year 2018 reflected a trend by big drug manufacturers, which continued to focus on their strongest areas, which is visible from the completed and planned divestitures of consumer health, generic and other divisions by top companies including J&J, Pfizer, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bayer, GSK, Merck KGaA and Sanofi among others," Anoop Pillai, company profiled analyst at GlobalData said in a statement.

The companies featured in GlobalData’s top 25 list remained unchanged from the previous year with one exception. Takeda Pharmaceutical was ousted by Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine, which took the number 25 spot. While Japan-based Takeda may have seen its market cap fall last year, the company dominated headlines for a bit with its $62 billion acquisition of Shire Plc, which was completed in January of this year. According to Megan Collett, a pharma analyst at GlobalData, the shares of Takeda fell considerably due to concerns about debt from the acquisition of Shire Plc. While Takeda dropped off the list, Shire remained on GlobalData’s top 25 at number 22 with a market cap of $42 billion.

The Takeda/ Shire deal certainly wasn’t the only one between players with large market caps. Pillai noted that 2019 began with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s $74 billion acquisition of Celgene.

One common link between the companies that made up the top 25 was their continued investment in research and development. According to the report, the top 25 continued to invest in R&D, with an overall R&D/ Sales average of 19.5 percent. Of those, Vertex, Celgene and Regeneron stood out with averages of 46.5 percent, 37.1 percent and 32.6 percent, respectively.

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