Despite the current economic difficulties many companies have been achieving impressive growth, with the proportion of pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the top 50 increasing to 12 per cent this year, up from 4 per cent in 2007.

Among these companies is contract research organisation (CRO) Sundia MediTech, which was ranked 16th in the awards. Since its formation four years ago the company has maintained impressive growth, with last year’s acquisition of United Pharmatech helping to maintain this.