OBJECTIVE： To find out potential financial risk in the listed Chinese pharmaceutical companies and to provide recommendations. METHODS： The Z-score established with Altman E was adopted to classiy and analyzed empirically 143 listed pharmaceutical companies in China during 1998-2013 by sub-sectors （medical devices， pharmaceutical commercial， biological products chemical raw medicine， traditional TCM）. The effects of some data in annual reports on Z-score were validated by using stepwise regression. RESULTS： The result showed that  the average Z-score values percentage of the best 3 companies were 90.95％，47.96％ and 41.25％，respectively，from 1998-2013； while for the worst 3 companies，the values were 0.80％，1.14％ and 1.21％， respectively. At the same time，the financial situations of chemical raw medicine companies were the worst among 5 sub-sectors， of which during 2004-2006， the constituent ratios of companies in “Distress” zones went over 50.00％，which were 60.00％，55.20％ and 53.60％，respectively. If counted by calendar year，the market value per share of 10 years and float of 9 years significantly affected the Z-score values （P＜0.05）； if counted by listed year，the market value per share of 15 years significantly affected the Z-score values. CONCLUSIONS： Although major pharmaceutical companies have good financial status， financial crisis still exists in some companies. Especially，the financial situations of chemical raw medicine companies should not be neglected. The government should pay more attention to share price in order to prevent financial crisis which was induced by stock bubbles； at the same time， supervision system should be established to evaluate the financial situation of listed pharmaceutical companies， even for all listed companies.