Pharma’s reputation ‘is worsening among patients’
pharmafile | February 10, 2015 | News story | Medical Communications, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | HIV, ViiV Healthcare, patientview, pharma, reputation, transparency
Only around four in ten patients believe pharma has a good reputation and many companies are failing to win patient trust when it comes to pricing, transparency and access to clinical trials.
So says UK independent organisation PatientView via its ‘Corporate Reputation of Pharma’ survey that asked patient groups to comment on the reputation of eight of the key industries within the healthcare sector.
PatientView’s chief executive Alex Wyke told Pharmafile: “Unilaterally pharma are talking about being more patient-centric. Although most patients and patient groups acknowledge the industry’s innovative capabilities, doubts continue to exist about other pharma activities – especially pharma pricing policies.”
The firm’s annual report is compiled from surveys conducted between November 2014 and January 2015, and quizzed 1,150 patients groups covering different disease areas in 58 countries their views of the corporate reputations of 37 different pharma companies.
Opinions about individual companies differed greatly. ViiV Healthcare – the HIV drug manufacturer that is co-owned by GSK – came first in the overall rankings and highest for patient centricity, quality of patient information, patient safety and producing products that are considered to be useful to society.
Novo Nordisk ranked highest for transparency and Abbvie the same for integrity. The biggest riser was Lundbeck, that rose from 22nd in the rankings in 2013 to joint-fifth in the most recent survey – and is close to recovering from the damage done to its reputation following the pay for delay scandal in 2013, when the Danish company ranked third.
On the other hand Gilead’s reputation appears to have been hit hard by ongoing criticisms of the price of the company’s new hepatitis C treatments. Gilead fell 12 places over the year, from second to 14th.
Pharma’s pricing policies remain the most contentious issue from the patient perspective. Overall, only 14% of patient groups believe that pharma companies offer excellent or good value when pricing their drugs.
Pharma improved its transparency in 2014 but still only 25% of patient groups believe that the industry is excellent or good at being transparent. Pharma continues to fail patients in making strides to provide easier access to clinical trials: just 34% said it is excellent or good at this.
Whilst the results show pharma’s overall reputation has improved compared to 2013, last year more people felt that the industry’s standing had worsened over the last five years (35%) than improved (25 per cent).
In 2014 39% of patients said multinational pharma companies have either an excellent or a good reputation, compared to 35.4% in 2013 and 34% in 2012 – so better – but it has yet to return to its peak in 2011, when 42% said that pharma’s reputation was excellent or good.
The report concludes: “Since the circumstances of individual pharma companies can fluctuate significantly, so, too, therefore, can their reputations as perceived by patient groups. An interesting analogy might be with a company’s share price, which can rise or fall after the release of financial information, reflecting the market’s perception of the health of the company’s financial future.”
Lilian Anekwe
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