ICON received a range of prestigious awards and brand recognition in 2025, reaffirming its leadership across clinical research innovation and excellence, employer excellence, long-term sustainable growth and impactful medical communications deliverables for clients.
Clinical research innovation and excellence
ICON was rated as one of the top-performing contract research organisations (CRO) for both phase 1 and phase 2/3 clinical trials in the 17th editions of the independent benchmarking reports from respected pharmaceutical market research company Industry Standard Research (ISR). These reports evaluate operational performance, sponsor satisfaction and brand strength.
For phase 1 ICON outpaced the average performance scores of other large CROs, for the sixth consecutive year, solidifying its position as a premier partner for early phase clinical studies (read press release | ISR Ph 1 CRO benchmark report).
For phase 2/3 studies ICON outscores the averages for both all other large CROs and the industry on 16 out of 18 delivery, staff and services metrics, and was joint first for three-year rolling average brand strength/loyalty (ISR Ph 2/3 CRO benchmark report).
In Asia Pacific, ICON was awarded Best CRO in APAC at the 2025 Asia Pacific Biopharma Excellence Awards.
In technology, ICON won AI Project of the Year Award at the Analytics & AI Awards for its secure, enterprise-grade AI Assistant that streamlines work and automate tasks, through integrated large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI (learn more about AI at ICON).
Sustainability and growth
Sustainability and long-term performance continued to be a major area of achievement for ICON. For the second year running, ICON was named in TIME’s World's Most Sustainable Companies 2025 (ICON featured at number 57 out of 500 companies and was listed as the highest CRO globally and the second highest Irish-based organisation). ICON was also named in TIME’s World’s Best Companies in Sustainable Growth lists for both 2025 and 2026. This ranking that celebrates organisations excelling in financial stability and environmental sustainability, emphasising ICON’s commitment to ESG leadership in tandem with business performance.
ICON’s continued performance and reputation were highlighted by inclusion on the Fortune 500 Europe list, underscoring the company’s position as one of the largest and most innovative companies in Europe by revenue and reflecting its resilience in an increasingly competitive global environment.
For the third year in a row, the company also featured on the TIME World’s Best Companies of 2025 list, recognising strong employee satisfaction, growth, and sustainability transparency, and reinforcing ICON’s standing among the world’s leading employers and innovative companies.
Employer excellence
ICON’s commitment to building an inclusive workplace was also recognised with inclusion on Forbes’ America’s Best Employers for Women 2025 and Forbes’ World’s Top Companies for Women 2025 lists, highlighting supportive workplace culture, gender equality, pay equity, and opportunities for advancement. The former list is produced by a survey of more than 140,000 women working at companies with at least 1,000 US-based employees, while the latter is based on global independent research into organisations that support gender equality and advancement of women in the workplace (learn more about Inclusion & Belonging at ICON).
In India, ICON received two employer awards: the GCC Workplace Award India 2025 for Organisational Excellence and recognised as a Top-Rated Company for Women in the 2025 Ambition Box Employee Choice Awards. Both awards acknowledge the company’s operational strength and the commitment of its teams to fostering a high-performing, inclusive work culture with the latter Ambition Box award based on feedback shared by ICON employees in India.
At the PharmaTimes International Clinical Researcher of the Year awards, recognising the talent and passion of clinical researchers from across the globe, ICON boasted over 30 employees who received gold, silver, and bronze awards or who were nominated as finalists.
Medical communications awards
ICON’s Creative and Digital Services and Global Medical Communications teams were recognised at the 2025 Rx Club Awards, receiving an Award of Excellence in the Posters/Display category for their work on the ISMPP Academy Poster, showcasing the strength of ICON’s capabilities in medical communications and creative sciences. ICON also achieved multiple honours at the 2025 GD USA Health + Wellness Awards and 2025 MarCom Awards, where the company was recognised for excellence in study materials and strategic communications projects developed for global biopharmaceutical partners.
A full list of ICON’s awards and recognitions can be viewed at www.iconplc.com/awards
In this section
-
Digital Disruption
-
Clinical strategies to optimise SaMD for treating mental health
-
Digital Disruption: Surveying the industry's evolving landscape
- AI and clinical trials
-
Clinical trial data anonymisation and data sharing
-
Clinical Trial Tokenisation
-
Closing the evidence gap: The value of digital health technologies in supporting drug reimbursement decisions
- mHealth wearables
-
Personalising Digital Health
- Real World Data
-
The triad of trust: Navigating real-world healthcare data integration
-
Decoding AI in software as a medical device (SaMD)
- Software as a medical device (SaMD)
-
Clinical strategies to optimise SaMD for treating mental health
-
Patient Centricity
-
Accelerating clinical development through DHTs
-
Agile Clinical Monitoring
-
Capturing the voice of the patient in clinical trials
-
Charting the Managed Access Program Landscape
- Representation and inclusion in clinical trials
-
Exploring the patient perspective from different angles
-
Patient safety and pharmacovigilance
-
A guide to safety data migrations
-
Taking safety reporting to the next level with automation
-
Outsourced Pharmacovigilance Affiliate Solution
-
The evolution of the Pharmacovigilance System Master File: Benefits, challenges, and opportunities
-
Sponsor and CRO pharmacovigilance and safety alliances
-
Understanding the Periodic Benefit-Risk Evaluation Report
-
A guide to safety data migrations
-
Patient voice survey
-
Patient Voice Survey - Decentralised and Hybrid Trials
-
Reimagining Patient-Centricity with the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)
-
Using longitudinal qualitative research to capture the patient voice
-
Prioritising patient-centred research for regulatory approval
-
Accelerating clinical development through DHTs
-
Regulatory Intelligence
-
Accelerating access
-
Meeting requirements for Joint Clinical Assessments
-
Navigating the regulatory landscape in the US and Japan:
-
Preparing for ICH GCP E6(R3) implementation
-
An innovative approach to rare disease clinical development
- EU Clinical Trials Regulation
-
Using innovative tools and lean writing processes to accelerate regulatory document writing
-
Current overview of data sharing within clinical trial transparency
-
Global Agency Meetings: A collaborative approach to drug development
-
Keeping the end in mind: key considerations for creating plain language summaries
-
Navigating orphan drug development from early phase to marketing authorisation
-
Procedural and regulatory know-how for China biotechs in the EU
-
RACE for Children Act
-
Early engagement and regulatory considerations for biotech
-
Regulatory Intelligence Newsletter
-
Requirements & strategy considerations within clinical trial transparency
-
Spotlight on regulatory reforms in China
-
Demystifying EU CTR, MDR and IVDR
-
Transfer of marketing authorisation
-
Exploring FDA guidance for modern Data Monitoring Committees
-
Streamlining dossier preparation
-
Accelerating access
-
Therapeutics insights
-
Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders
- Cardiovascular
- Cell and Gene Therapies
-
Central Nervous System
-
A mind for digital therapeutics
-
Challenges and opportunities in traumatic brain injury clinical trials
-
Challenges and opportunities in Parkinson’s Disease clinical trials
-
Early, precise and efficient; the methods and technologies advancing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s R&D
-
Key Considerations in Chronic Pain Clinical Trials
-
ICON survey report: CNS therapeutic development
-
A mind for digital therapeutics
-
Glycomics
- Infectious Diseases
- NASH
- Obesity
- Oncology
- Paediatrics
-
Respiratory
-
Rare and orphan diseases
-
Advanced therapies for rare diseases
-
Cross-border enrollment of rare disease patients
-
Crossing the finish line: Why effective participation support strategy is critical to trial efficiency and success in rare diseases
-
Diversity, equity and inclusion in rare disease clinical trials
-
Identify and mitigate risks to rare disease clinical programmes
-
Leveraging historical data for use in rare disease trials
-
Natural history studies to improve drug development in rare diseases
-
Patient Centricity in Orphan Drug Development
-
The key to remarkable rare disease registries
-
Therapeutic spotlight: Precision medicine considerations in rare diseases
-
Advanced therapies for rare diseases
-
Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders
-
Transforming Trials
-
Accelerating biotech innovation from discovery to commercialisation
-
Demystifying the Systematic Literature Reviews
-
Ensuring the validity of clinical outcomes assessment (COA) data: The value of rater training
-
From bottlenecks to breakthroughs
-
Linguistic validation of Clinical Outcomes Assessments
-
More than monitoring
-
Optimising biotech funding
- Adaptive clinical trials
-
Best practices to increase engagement with medical and scientific poster content
-
Decentralised clinical trials
-
Biopharma perspective: the promise of decentralised models and diversity in clinical trials
-
Decentralised and Hybrid clinical trials
-
Practical considerations in transitioning to hybrid or decentralised clinical trials
-
Navigating the regulatory labyrinth of technology in decentralised clinical trials
-
Biopharma perspective: the promise of decentralised models and diversity in clinical trials
-
eCOA implementation
-
Blended solutions insights
-
Clinical trials in Japan: An enterprise growth and management strategy
-
How investments in supply of CRAs is better than competing with the demand for CRAs
-
The evolution of FSP: not just for large pharma
-
Embracing a blended operating model
-
Observations in outsourcing: Survey results show a blended future
-
Clinical trials in Japan: An enterprise growth and management strategy
-
Implications of COVID-19 on statistical design and analyses of clinical studies
-
Improving pharma R&D efficiency
-
Increasing Complexity and Declining ROI in Drug Development
-
Innovation in Clinical Trial Methodologies
- Partnership insights
-
Risk Based Quality Management
-
Transforming the R&D Model to Sustain Growth
-
Accelerating biotech innovation from discovery to commercialisation
-
Value Based Healthcare
-
Strategies for commercialising oncology treatments for young adults
-
US payers and PROs
-
Accelerated early clinical manufacturing
-
Cardiovascular Medical Devices
-
CMS Part D Price Negotiations: Is your drug on the list?
-
COVID-19 navigating global market access
-
Ensuring scientific rigor in external control arms
-
Evidence Synthesis: A solution to sparse evidence, heterogeneous studies, and disconnected networks
-
Health technology assessment
-
Perspectives from US payers
-
ICER’s impact on payer decision making
-
Making Sense of the Biosimilars Market
-
Medical communications in early phase product development
-
Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of Value Based Healthcare
-
Payer Reliance on ICER and Perceptions on Value Based Pricing
-
Payers Perspectives on Digital Therapeutics
-
Precision Medicine
-
RWE Generation Cross Sectional Studies and Medical Chart Review
-
Survey results: How to engage healthcare decision-makers
-
The affordability hurdle for gene therapies
-
The Role of ICER as an HTA Organisation
-
Integrating openness and precision for competitive advantage
-
Strategies for commercialising oncology treatments for young adults
-
Blog
-
Videos
-
Webinar Channel