Margins and profitability in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods

Wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goodsNACE 46.460

121 Norwegian companies in this industry. The median company kept 4.8 % of every krone.

11 % of the companies in this industry posted a negative operating result that year.

The distribution

What companies in the industry earned

One tenth of companies fell below 0.0 %, and one tenth above 15.6 %. That is the real spread in the industry, not an average.

Top against weakest third

Top third
10.9 %
Weakest third
1.9 %
Spread
9 percentage points
Equity ratio
36.4 %median of 116

Size

Profitability by size

Profitability by size
RevenueCompaniesMedian operating margin
5 to 20 m184.5 %
20 to 100 m436.2 %
over 100 m594.5 %

Companies are split into revenue bands, with the median margin in each. Bands with fewer than ten companies are omitted, because the median becomes too unstable to show.

Geography

Where the companies are based

  • Oslo1
  • Fredrikstad1
  • Fornebu1
  • Lillehammer1
  • Sundebru1

The six postal towns with the most companies in this industry, by registered business address.

Public contracts

Who in the industry wins public contracts

98 of 121 companies in the industry have won at least one public contract since 2022, that is 81.0 %.

Those that win have median revenue of 80.2 m kr, against 151.4 m kr for those that do not. That is 0.5× as much. Note that this describes who wins, not evidence that contracts make companies large; large companies also find it easier to bid.

The 427 contracts we find come most often from these buyers.

  • Sykehusinnkjøp HF210
  • Arbeids- OG Velferdsetaten48
  • Sykehusbygg HF24
  • UiT Norges arktiske universitet14
  • Oslo Universitetssykehus HF (hovedenhet)10

Contracts come from Doffin and TED. Our collection is not complete, and TED covers only contracts above the EEA threshold, so the figures are a floor and not a full count. We say what we find, not what exists.

Questions and answers

Common questions about wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods

What is a normal operating margin in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods?
The median company kept 4.8 % of every krone. That means half of the 121 companies in the sample were above it, and half below.
What separates the best from the weakest in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods?
The top third kept 10.9 % of every krone, against 1.9 % for the weakest third. The spread is 9 percentage points, and that is within the same industry, the same country and the same year.
How many companies are there in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods in Norway?
We hold filed accounts for 121 Norwegian companies on this industry code with at least one million kroner in revenue. The real number is higher, since dormant and very small companies are excluded.
How many are loss-making in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods?
11 % of the companies in the sample posted a negative operating result.
How large is a typical company in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods?
Median revenue is 88.5 m kr. Half of the companies fall between 33.5 m kr and 247.4 m kr.
How much do public contracts matter in wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods?
98 of 121 companies, that is 81.0 %, have won at least one public contract since 2022. They have median revenue of 80.2 m kr, against 151.4 m kr for the rest.

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Related industries

Other industries in the same group

Method. 121 companies registered on industry code 46.460 (Wholesale of pharmaceutical and medical goods) with filed accounts and at least one million kroner in revenue. The figures come from the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises and are public. Operating margin is operating profit divided by operating revenue.

Each company appears with the most recent accounts we hold for it. For the great majority that is the 2024 filing. Around eight per cent had already filed for 2025 when we collected, and for those the 2025 figures apply. We therefore write "latest accounts" rather than naming a single year.

We show one cross-section and no trend line. Our database has broad coverage for the most recent accounting year, but only a small and non-random sample for earlier years. A curve over time would therefore measure who we happened to collect, not what happened in the industry.

Companies with under one million in revenue are excluded, because dormant limited companies would otherwise pull the median down. We do not publish an industry page until we hold at least 30 companies.

This is a description of an industry, not a ranking of companies. We name no individual company here.

Ohmsyn is built by Erik Harry Høydal.