This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.
Total employment earnings in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors were €7.9 billion in 2025, up from €4.0 billion in 2019.
Between 2019 and 2025 employment in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors increased by 60.0% and the total wage bill rose by 98.1%.
More than half of people working in these sectors (56.6%) had a third-level qualification.
Foreign-owned enterprises employed 83,317 people (86.0% of employees in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors) while 13,531 (14.0%) worked for Irish owned enterprises.
The highest percentage of those employed in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors lived in Co. Cork (17.3%), followed by Co. Dublin (15.6%) and Co. Galway (15.1%).
The total sale of goods in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors doubled from €105bn in 2019 to €211bn in 2025.
Total assets in these sectors stood at €436bn at the end of 2025, made up largely of financial assets of €237bn (54.3%) and intangible fixed assets €137bn (31.3%).
The majority of assets in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors had owners based in the US with €371bn (85.0%) of the total.
The CSO would like to acknowledge the work of Adam Lynch who worked with the Balance of Payments Analysis and Dissemination team on this project as part of the CSO’s Graduate Programme. We wish to extend our appreciation and thanks to him for contributing to the analysis and production of this release.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (24 September 2026) published the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology Sectors in Ireland. This release is a CSO Frontier Series Output which means care must be taken when interpreting these results as methodologies may change and data sources may be incomplete.
Commenting on the release, Clare Sullivan, Statistician in the Balance of Payment Analysis and Dissemination Division, said:
“Today’s Frontier release outlines the growth of employment in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors from 60,537 in 2019 to 96,847 in 2025, an increase of 36,310 or 60.0% over the past 7 years. The highest percentage of those employed in these sectors lived in Co. Cork (17.3%), followed by Co. Dublin (15.6%) and Co. Galway (15.1%). Interestingly, there were people employed in these sectors who were living in every county in Ireland.
The sale of goods in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors between 2019 and 2025 rose from €105bn in 2019 to €211bn in 2025. Within this, international trade exports grew from €88.2bn in 2019 to €164.2bn in 2025. The exports in 2025 were largely dominated by sales to the US.
Total financial and non-financial assets owned by the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology sectors at the end of 2025 stood at €436bn, owned largely by enterprises with their ultimate owner based in the US at 85.0%.”