Perplexity cut

Leading Pharmaceuticals Brands in AI Search in China

The same monthly sample, re-ranked using only Perplexity answers.

October 2026 edition

Across the six months through October 2026, Merck & Co. leads AI search visibility in Pharmaceuticals on Perplexity in China with a Goodie visibility score of 82.0, ahead of Sandoz (80.5) and Pfizer (80.2). The median score across the 10 ranked brands is 79.3, and a score above 75.8 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is sina.com.cn at 12.0% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 9.5%.

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

Industry Benchmarks

October 2026 · Pharmaceuticals · Perplexity
What good looks like in this category. Read a brand's own score against these before looking at who is winning.
Median visibility score
79.3
Half of the 10 ranked pharmaceuticals brands score below this. The midpoint, not the average, so a few dominant brands do not distort it.
Index-wide median is 73.0
Score to enter the top 10
75.8
Clearing 75.8 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 3.5 points below the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
10.9
A typical answer names eleven brands, so the consideration set is wide and a mention is comparatively easy to earn.
Index-wide average is 8.1
Citation mix
  • UGC 5%
  • Editorial 3%
  • Video 2%
  • Reference 5%
  • Other 85%
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
9.5%
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
10 ranked here · 560 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.
82.0
10.4%Perplexity▲ 0.154fortunebusinessinsights.com
02Sandoz
80.5
10.2%Perplexity—43accessiblemeds.org
03Pfizer
80.2
10.1%Perplexity—61fortunebusinessinsights.com
04Sanofi
79.8
10.1%Perplexity—49fortunebusinessinsights.com
05Myers Squb
79.4
10.0%Perplexity▼ 0.428biotechdirectory.com.au
06Teva Pharmaceutical Industries
79.2
10.0%Perplexity—55accessiblemeds.org
07Daiichi Sankyo
79.1
10.0%Perplexity▲ 3.550pharmavoice.com
08AstraZeneca
78.8
9.9%Perplexity▼ 1.758iqvia.com
09Astex Pharmaceuticals
77.3
9.8%Perplexity—50nih.gov
10Moderna
75.8
9.6%Perplexity—43fortunebusinessinsights.com
10 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
01sina.com.cn
12.0%
▲ 1.4
02linkedin.com
5.4%
▼ 3.4
03sohu.com
4.9%
▲ 1.1
04yahoo.com
4.9%
—
05fortunebusinessinsights.com
4.5%
▼ 2.5
06intuitionlabs.ai
4.4%
—
07sina.cn
4.0%
▲ 1.1
08drugdiscoverytrends.com
3.6%
—
09pharmaphorum.com
3.5%
▼ 1.6
10youtube.com
3.4%
—
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
01Vaccine manufacturers supplying global markets5552
02Pharma companies driving innovation in oncology3946
03Generic drug companies doctors trust2739
04Which companies lead rare disease treatments?4836
05癌症药这块,哪家药企是真的在出新东西?816
5 of 35k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Oct vs Sep
Rising
Daiichi Sankyoscore 79.1
▲ 3.5
Merck & Co.score 82.0
▲ 0.1
Falling
AstraZenecascore 78.8
▼ 1.7
Myers Squbscore 79.4
▼ 0.4
4 ranked brands scored in both Sep and OctIndustry avg ±1.4/mo

Global Search Demand

Where this industry's questions originate
84,922 searches sampled
Tracked markets for Pharmaceuticals, by sampled search volume
#CountrySearch volume
01United States58K
02United Kingdom20K
03Japan2K
04Egypt1K
05Germany686
06Italy529
07Saudi Arabia431
08Australia376
09Canada363
10Singapore312
11France70
12United Arab Emirates63
12 tracked markets
This edition

What Changed This Month

Merck & Co. leads Pharmaceuticals this edition with a visibility score of 82.0, ahead of Sandoz at 80.5.

sina.com.cn is the most-cited source grounding pharmaceuticals answers, at roughly 12.0% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 9.5% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked pharmaceuticals brands is 79.3, and a score above 75.8 reaches the industry top ten.

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Where Does Your Brand Stand in AI Search?

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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 82.0, measured across the tracked AI models.

sina.com.cn is the most-cited source in pharmaceuticals AI answers, grounding roughly 12.0% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked pharmaceuticals brands is 79.3. A score above 75.8 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.