Philippines’ leading pharmaceutical company, United Laboratories, Inc. (Unilab) ranked the highest company of ASEAN origin in the TIME Magazine and Statista list of Asia-Pacific’s Best Employers of 2027.
Unilab placed 1st in the Philippine companies, outperforming other companies founded and headquartered in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including some of the region’s largest conglomerates.
It placed 24th among 500 companies in the region with a rate of 89.15 out of 100.
Unilab bested Ayala Corp. which ranked 32nd with a score of 88.07; followed by Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. at 44th; San Miguel Corp. at 55th and Jollibee Foods Corp. at 89th.
Meanwhile, Del Monte Philippines placed 105th; BDO Unibank (164th); Philippine Airlines (186th); Aboitiz Power (196th) and SM Investments Corp. (206th).
Other Philippine firms that made the list are Solaire Resort & Casino (no. 222); Rizal Commercial Banking (no. 260); JG Summit Holdings (no. 262); Century Pacific Group (no. 279); RealPage Philippines (no. 280); Megaworld (no. 304); PLDT (no. 327); ABS-CBN (no. 338) and Max’s Group (No. 426).
The ranking, announced globally on November 3, does not measure revenue, profit or market capitalization.
It reflects workplace reputation, drawn from a survey of more than 80,000 full-time and part-time employees across Asia-Pacific, using data gathered from 2024 to 2026.
Employees rated on a scale of 0 to 10 how willing they were to recommend their current or former employers to family and friends, and whether they would recommend other companies in their industries.
Statista combined these direct and indirect assessments, giving more weight to employees’ views of their own workplaces, then scored each company out of 100. TIME-Statista initially evaluated more than 7,000 companies to identify the region’s 500 best employers.
Only those with at least 1,000 employees in Asia-Pacific and operations in at least two markets were covered.
Respondents identified their employers through an open-ended question designed to limit company influence over who took part in the survey.
Unilab was founded in 1945 by Jose Y. Campos and Mariano K. Tan as United Drug, a small corner drugstore in Binondo, Manila.
It expanded from pharmaceutical distribution into manufacturing and grew into one of Southeast Asia’s major pharmaceutical enterprises. The company marked its 80th anniversary in 2025.
