Punctual or aperiodic

Data collection from September to December 2026.

Legal unit

The sampling frame is extracted from the Statistical Units Identification System (Sirus). It is based on a stratification into seven groups, constructed from the main activity of legal units (APEN) or of their establishments (APET).
The first group corresponds to the “core” of the value chain. It includes units operating within the two sectors of the pharmaceutical industry: manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products (21.10Y) and manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations (21.20Y). Membership in the value chain is considered highly likely for these units, although some may carry out activities outside the scope of the survey (for example, the manufacture of medical devices, cosmetics or para-pharmaceutical products). Units belonging to the core are surveyed exhaustively.
The six other groups correspond to the “potential” component of the value chain. They include units belonging to sectors likely to participate in the pharmaceutical value chain, although such participation is not systematic. These units are divided into** six homogeneous sub-strata according to their theoretical probability of belonging to the value chain**, estimated from the proportion of units identified as belonging to the value chain in at least one external source.
Specific employee-size thresholds are defined for each of the potential sub-strata. The higher the theoretical probability of belonging to the value chain, the lower the threshold applied. Units identified through external sources are nevertheless retained within the survey scope, even when they fall below these thresholds, in order to limit coverage bias.

Approximately 7,600 legal units

The different stages of the survey ensure that the process meets statistical production requirements:
• checks and follow-up procedures during the data collection phase;
• data cleaning to ensure consistency of responses within each questionnaire;
• statistical treatment of partial and total non-response through imputation;
• calculation of precision indicators.