Six of the top 10 companies on Forbes magazine’s list of The World’s Most Innovative Companies 2014 have Irish operations, with Salesforce.com coming in at No 1. The San Francisco, California-based enterprise cloud computing applications provider, that has offices in Sandyford, Dublin, has received the recognition for the fourth year in a row now.

Hot on the heels on Salesforce.com at No 2 on the list is Connecticut-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals. The biopharmaceutical company is building facilities in Dublin and Athlone. In fifth place is biopharmaceutical company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Based in Tarrytown, New York, the firm is to establish a production facility in Limerick. E-commerce giant Amazon.com, which is sixth on the list, has a development centre in Dublin.

Behind Amazon.com on the list is BioMarin Pharmaceutical, which has operations in Co Cork. Headquartered in San Rafael, California, the company develops and commercialises pharmaceuticals for serious diseases and medical conditions.VMware is ninth on the list. The virtualisation infrastructure solutions provider is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and has offices in Dublin and Cork.


Forbes ranks companies on its World’s Most Innovative Companies list by what it calls the companies’ ‘innovation premium’ and this list represents a further reflection on how Ireland is viewed by the world's leading investors, innovators and entrepreneurs.