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2025 awards and recognition

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 automates 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

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