A Model to Predict the Profitability of Pharmaceutical Companies Using Artificial Neural Network

The aim of this paper is to develop a model to predict the profitability of pharmaceutical companies using artificial neural network. The research method was descriptive-modeling and statistical population included all active pharmaceutical companies of the Stock Exchange including 21 companies. Due to the limited population¡ no sampling was performed and the whole community was surveyed. The documents of pharmaceutical companies were used to data collection and artificial neural networks were used for data analysis. The results showed that the best model to predict the profitability of pharmaceutical companies is obtained by considering the variables of working capital to total assets¡ cumulative profit (loss) to total assets¡ earnings before interest and taxes to total assets¡ the market value of equity to the book value of debts¡ sales to total assets and liquidity.