This includes toxic heavy metals, such as As, Cd, Hg, and Pb. Other metals, such as Fe, Cr, Ni and Zn, are also of interest due to health risks. In addition, many Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) may contain residual metal catalysts, such as Ru, Pt, and Pd. Since there are many potential sources of contamination, it may be of interest to measure raw materials, intermediates as well as final products. This study demonstrates that the X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) technique is capable of performing elemental analysis of all of these pharmaceutical (liquid, powder and solid) materials with high sensitivity, precision and accuracy. Simple sample preparation, non-destructive analysis, a wide dynamic range and good to excellent detection limits across large parts of the periodic table are some of the advantages of this method.