List of pharmaceutical companies in France in 2026: map, figures and directory

France has 364 active pharmaceutical labs with a head office on its territory, according to the SIRENE register on 22 October 2026, and 185 foreign groups are registered there under the same activity code. A third of the head offices are in the Paris region, nearly four labs in ten are mid-caps or large companies, and more than half were founded after 2000. This page gives the map, the figures and the full list, company by company.

How many pharmaceutical companies are there in France?

The SIRENE register, kept by INSEE, the French statistics office, classifies every company by its main activity. Code 21.20Z stands for the "manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations". In October 2026, 560 active companies carry it.

Not all of them are French labs. Eleven are sole traders, counted here but not named. 185 are companies with a head office abroad, registered in France to invoice or employ staff there: they have their own section below. That leaves 364 pharmaceutical labs with a head office in France, which together run 604 open establishments.

The code also covers animal health: Virbac, Ceva Santé Animale and Vétoquinol appear in the list alongside the makers of human medicines.

Map of pharmaceutical companies in France

Where the labs are: a third in the Paris region

Île-de-France holds 127 head offices, 35% of the total. Paris has 44 and Hauts-de-Seine 31, home to the French head offices of many international groups. Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes follows with 57 labs, 24 of them in Rhône, then Grand Est (32), led by Bas-Rhin (16), and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (28), where Alpes-Maritimes has 14. In all, 71 departments host at least one lab's head office.

The head office is not the factory. A group based at La Défense may manufacture in Dunkirk or Tours, and production sites spread well beyond the Paris region. The full list gives each lab's number of open establishments.

From SMEs to large groups

The register classes 163 labs as SMEs, 112 as mid-caps (ETI) and 30 as large companies; the category is not computed for the other 59, often recent. Mid-caps and large companies therefore make up 39% of the labs.

Headcount is declared for 234 labs. Nearly one in four employs fewer than ten people, often a young biotech or a specialty lab. At the other end, 15 companies have more than 1,000 employees, among them Sanofi Winthrop Industrie, Virbac, Lilly France, Boiron, UPSA and LFB.

A sector that keeps renewing itself

The median founding year is 2003: half of the active labs were founded since. 77 were founded since 2020. That figure mixes two things: young companies developing a medicine or a biotherapy, and new companies set up by established groups during a reorganisation, an acquisition or a spin-off. At the other end, 59 labs were founded before 1980 or have a date so old the register does not know it.

The largest labs by published revenue

Of the 364 labs, 192 have accounts published in the national company register. The ranking below orders them by revenue for the last financial year filed.

These figures are each company's own accounts, not its group's. A manufacturing subsidiary may invoice the production of a whole group, which inflates its revenue, while a sales subsidiary may sell only part of the range. Companies that do not publish their accounts do not appear.

The top spot is a case in point. Sanofi Winthrop Industrie, the company that runs the Sanofi group's French factories, reports €27.6bn for 2025 in its filed accounts, after €24.1bn in 2024: its sales include production delivered to other group companies, and it took over activities from the group on 1 January 2025. The figure is accurate, but it does not measure Sanofi's weight in the French market.

The full list of pharmaceutical companies in France

The 364 labs with a head office in France, from the largest headcount to the smallest. Search by name or town, filter by region or department (clicking the map does the same), sort by column; each name opens the company's official record. The list can also be downloaded as CSV, foreign groups included.

Foreign groups registered in France

185 pharmaceutical manufacturers have their head office abroad but are registered in France, usually to invoice, file VAT or employ staff there. Germany (31), Switzerland (27), the United Kingdom (22) and the United States (18) lead. Here they are by country.

Method and limits

The list comes from the SIRENE register and the national company register, queried on 22 October 2026 through the French government's company search API. It keeps the active legal units whose declared main activity is APE code 21.20Z. Sole traders are counted but not named, and no information about executives is used. The data is refreshed every quarter; the CSV file can be reused under the Licence Ouverte 2.0, like the public data it is built from, with attribution.

Three limits are worth keeping in mind. The APE code is the one the company declares: a lab that has its medicines made by a contract manufacturer and registers as a pharmaceutical wholesaler (code 46.46Z) is not in this list, nor are dermocosmetics or food supplement brands, which fall under other codes. The position on the map is the head office, not the factories. Finally, size and revenue reflect the latest declared data, which may be one or two financial years old.

The manufacturing authorisations granted by ANSM, the French medicines agency, are published in the European EudraGMDP database, which offers no simple national extract; they are not cross-checked here.

What this list means for a brand sold in pharmacies

For a brand that sells through pharmacies, these 364 labs are both the competitive landscape and the standard pharmacists expect. The largest arrive with teams of sales reps, ordering tools and terms negotiated with buying groups; an SME has to hold its own with fewer people. Our guides on pharmacy CRM for pharmaceutical brands and SFA software for a pharma sales force cover the tools field teams in the sector use.

Frequently asked questions

How many pharmaceutical companies are there in France?

In October 2026 the SIRENE register lists 560 active companies whose main activity is the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations (APE code 21.20Z). Leaving out 11 sole traders, that is 364 labs with a head office in France and 185 foreign groups registered in France.

Where are pharmaceutical companies located in France?

Île-de-France holds 127 head offices, 35% of the total, ahead of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (57) and Grand Est (32). Paris (44), Hauts-de-Seine (31) and Rhône (24) are the three departments with the most.

What does APE code 21.20Z cover?

It is the French activity classification code for the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations: human and veterinary medicines, vaccines, blood products and diagnostic reagents. Companies declare it themselves to INSEE; a lab that has its medicines made by a contract manufacturer and registers as a wholesaler is not included.

Can I download the list of pharmaceutical companies in France?

Yes. The full list is available as a CSV file that opens in Excel: 549 rows with SIREN number, town, department, region, company category, headcount band, year founded, number of establishments and last published revenue. It is free to reuse under the Licence Ouverte 2.0 with attribution, and refreshed every quarter.

Where do the revenue figures come from?

From the annual accounts filed with the national company register, as returned by the French government's company search API. They are each company's own accounts, not its group's: a manufacturing subsidiary may invoice a whole group's production, and a company that does not publish its accounts has no figure.

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