Although the focus of Hardman & Co is predominantly on companies in the smallto mid-sized market capitalisation range, when writing research reports, it is important to position them relative to the industry in which they operate. Apart from Japanese companies, all the major global pharmaceutical companies have reported full-year results for 2018 over the past few weeks; therefore, we have taken the opportunity to update our industry database and generate the first cut of global rankings for 2018. For an industry that requires a long investment cycle – it still takes, on average, 10 years from discovery to launch of a new drug – decisions made many years ago have important consequences on current financial results. Therefore, looking back at operational performance over 20 years reveals how different company strategies have panned out.