Market cut · China

Leading Pharmaceuticals Brands in AI Search in China

The Pharmaceuticals index re-ranked using only prompts and answers from China.

October 2026 edition

Across the six months through October 2026, Merck & Co. leads AI search visibility in Pharmaceuticals in China with a Goodie visibility score of 79.7, ahead of Pfizer (78.5) and Sanofi (59.3). The median score across the 20 ranked brands is 38.0, and a score above 38.6 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is wikipedia.org at 11.4% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 8.9%.

35k prompts · 2.6m AI answers · 11.6m citations · Goodie AI Visibility Index

Industry Benchmarks

October 2026 · Pharmaceuticals · China
What good looks like in this category. Read a brand's own score against these before looking at who is winning.
Median visibility score
38.0
Half of the 20 ranked pharmaceuticals brands score below this. The midpoint, not the average, so a few dominant brands do not distort it.
Index-wide median is 71.9
Score to enter the top 10
38.6
Clearing 38.6 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 0.6 points above the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
9.9
A typical answer names ten brands, so the consideration set is wide and a mention is comparatively easy to earn.
Index-wide average is 7.9
Citation mix
  • UGC 3%
  • Editorial 4%
  • Video 1%
  • Reference 11%
  • Other 81%
Other leads the third-party sources grounding pharmaceuticals answers. Brand-owned citations sit in the next cell and are not counted here. “Other” covers domains we have not classified into a type yet.
Brand-owned citation share
8.9%
Owned content is weak here: third-party sources decide most of these answers.
Index-wide average is 26.8%
Industry sentiment
49/100
Mean tone of mentions across the ranked brands that carry a measured value. Per-brand sentiment sits on each brand profile.
Prompts sampled
35k
Real buyer phrasing, 4 models
AI answers analysed
2.6m
315k in October · ▲ 5.4% vs September
Citations parsed
11.6m
1m in October · ▼ 2.3% vs September
Brands observed
570
20 ranked here · 550 unranked

Brand Visibility Leaderboard

Brand visibility leaderboard for Pharmaceuticals, ranked by six-month average AI visibility score
#BrandVisibility scoreShare of voiceModelsΔ vs last monthSentimentTop cited source
01Merck & Co.
79.7
10.4%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.445statista.com
02Pfizer
78.5
10.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity—49who.int
03Sanofi
59.3
7.7%AI ModeCopilotPerplexity—50who.int
04Johnson & Johnson
57.9
7.6%AI ModeChatGPTCopilot—52statista.com
05AstraZeneca
57.2
7.5%AI ModeCopilotPerplexity▼ 2.759statista.com
06Novartis
56.0
7.3%AI ModeChatGPTCopilot—65statista.com
07Sandoz
39.7
5.2%AI ModePerplexity▲ 0.458linkedin.com
08Astex Pharmaceuticals
39.0
5.1%CopilotPerplexity—65gminsights.com
09Teva Pharmaceutical Industries
38.9
5.1%ChatGPTPerplexity▲ 0.460wikipedia.org
10Daiichi Sankyo
38.6
5.0%CopilotPerplexity▲ 0.954pfizer.com
20 ranked · visibility is a six-month averageTop source = most frequent source in answers mentioning the brand · Δ compares Oct with Sep

Most-Cited Domains

The answer supply chain
Most-cited domains in AI answers for Pharmaceuticals
#DomainCitation shareΔ vs last month
01wikipedia.org
11.4%
—
02sina.com.cn
5.5%
▲ 0.7
03linkedin.com
5.5%
▼ 3.4
04fiercepharma.com
5.3%
—
05fda.gov
5.0%
▼ 1.5
06sohu.com
4.9%
▲ 1.1
07finance.yahoo.com
4.1%
—
08sina.cn
4.0%
▲ 1.1
09reddit.com
3.7%
—
10panda-int.com
3.6%
—
Top 10 of 1k domains observedΔ compares Oct with Sep, in percentage points

Prompts, Topics & Movers

What's driving this month's answers

Sampled prompts

Prompts sampled for Pharmaceuticals, with distinct brands named and sources cited
#PromptBrandsSources
01Pharma companies driving innovation in oncology151238
02Pharma companies investing heavily in R and D72168
03Vaccine manufacturers supplying global markets117149
04Which companies lead rare disease treatments?132144
05癌症药这块,哪家药企是真的在出新东西?4642
5 of 35k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Oct vs Sep
Rising
Daiichi Sankyoscore 38.6
▲ 0.9
Sandozscore 39.7
▲ 0.4
Falling
AstraZenecascore 57.2
▼ 2.7
GSKscore 18.2
▼ 2.1
▼ 0.9
10 ranked brands scored in both Sep and OctIndustry avg ±0.8/mo

Global Search Demand

Where this industry's questions originate
4,342,040 searches sampled
Tracked markets for Pharmaceuticals, by sampled search volume
#CountrySearch volume
01United States2.5M
02United Kingdom1.2M
03Japan234K
04Egypt137K
05Germany58K
06Italy54K
07Canada52K
08Saudi Arabia43K
09Australia40K
10Singapore32K
11France11K
12United Arab Emirates6K
12 tracked markets
This edition

What Changed This Month

Merck & Co. leads Pharmaceuticals this edition with a visibility score of 79.7, ahead of Pfizer at 78.5.

wikipedia.org is the most-cited source grounding pharmaceuticals answers, at roughly 11.4% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 8.9% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked pharmaceuticals brands is 38.0, and a score above 38.6 reaches the industry top ten.

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What you get
  • Visibility score
  • Industry rank
  • Brands ahead of you
  • Model and source gaps
Our Methodology

Our Approach to Gathering AI Visibility Data

We process millions of real prompts across AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity, then track which brands, products, and domains show up in the answers. That's the raw data behind every score in the Index.

Real Intent Capture

This data results from processing millions of real user prompts. We use advanced semantic and agentic processing to categorize them and define intent, filtering out noise to focus on high-value queries.

Global Model Interrogation

We run these prompts across the tracked models and across every market we cover, so each market is scored on its own answers rather than on a global average applied everywhere.

Attribution Mapping

We analyze the generated answers to capture the "Kingmaker" domains: the specific sources models cite most often in the answers that name a brand, so you can see which sources the models lean on where you appear and where you do not.

Three-dimensional logo of Goodie, an end-to-end AI search visibility platform.
FAQ · Pharmaceuticals

Questions?
We Have
the Answers.

Merck & Co. currently leads AI search visibility in pharmaceuticals with a Goodie visibility score of 79.7, measured across the tracked AI models.

wikipedia.org is the most-cited source in pharmaceuticals AI answers, grounding roughly 11.4% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked pharmaceuticals brands is 38.0. A score above 38.6 places a brand in the industry top ten.

Each edition samples the same tracked prompt set across the models Goodie follows, then ranks brands by how often they are named in those answers.

Monthly. Each edition re-samples the tracked prompt set so month-over-month figures are directly comparable.