Which drug manufacturers have the most FDA recalls? (2026 data)

Drug recalls are one of the clearest, most objective safety signals a manufacturer leaves behind. We analyzed the FDA enforcement (recall) history behind every company in the pharmaranks catalog to answer a question no official source ranks: which drug manufacturers have the worst recall record?

How we measured this

Every company on pharmaranks carries a 0–5 recall-safety score from its FDA enforcement history (openFDA), where a lower score means a heavier recall record. We took every manufacturer with at least 10 rated products, consolidated the FDA's separate registered entities into a single parent maker, and computed each maker's product-weighted average. The result covers 46 manufacturers; the average score is 3.4 / 5.

Manufacturers with the heaviest recall record

Rank	Manufacturer	Recall-safety score (0–5)	Rated products
1	Teva	2.3	46
2	Hospira	2.7	72
3	Pfizer	2.8	122
4	Lupin	2.8	20
5	Mylan	3.1	29
6	Fresenius	3.1	39
7	Apotex	3.1	23
8	Aurobindo	3.2	32
9	Sandoz	3.2	54
10	Novartis	3.4	126
11	Viatris	3.4	18
12	Emd	3.5	17

What the data shows

The bottom of the table is dominated by high-volume generic and sterile-injectable makers like Teva, Hospira, Pfizer, Lupin. Recall frequency rises with the number of products and batches a company ships, so a low score flags a heavier recall history — not that a company's drugs are unsafe to take. Every recalled lot is, by definition, pulled from the market.

How to read this responsibly

• Recall frequency is not overall quality. A large generics maker logs more recalls than a small specialty firm even at the same defect rate.
• A recall is the system working — a problem was caught and the product removed.
• Not medical or investment advice. Don't stop a medication based on this page; talk to your pharmacist or prescriber.

Check any company on the companies directory; see the method on how we rate.

Figures are generated live from the pharmaranks database (FDA openFDA enforcement data) at publication time.