Words by GOLD newsdesk
The pharmaceutical industry’s reputation among patient advocacy groups is continuing to improve, according to recent results from PatientView's ‘Corporate Reputation of Pharma survey’.
Some 59% of respondents described pharma’s corporate reputation as “excellent” or “good”, up from 50% in 2020 and 37% in 2016. These results place pharma ahead of all other healthcare stakeholders for corporate reputation for the first time since PatientView started tracking this data 11 years ago.
Put to 2,150 patient groups – representing over 19 million patients worldwide – between November 2021 and February 2022, the corporate reputation survey considered nine indicators such as integrity, support and services and patient information, plus patient support during COVID-19, to determine Pharma's performance during 2021.
The favourable review is thought to be largely driven by pharma’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, although the survey also highlighted positive attitudes towards pharma’s innovation, high-quality product development, focus on patient safety and having a patient-centred strategy.
However, areas for improvement were also flagged, such as the suggestion that pharma could be doing more in areas such as transparency, access to medicines and engaging patients in R&D.
Company success
As well as looking at the pharma industry as a whole, the 47 pharma companies assessed for the survey were ranked based on the same 10 indicators. Pfizer, Roche/Genentech, Gilead Sciences and Janssen came in the top five, with ViiV Healthcare taking the top spot for the ninth successive year.
Commenting on the announcement, Harmony Garges, Chief Medical Officer and Stephen Rea, Head of External Affairs and Communications, ViiV Healthcare, expressed their delight at the HIV specialist pharma company being ranked first for overall corporate reputation in pharma and thanked all those who shared their views in the survey.
"It is our mission to leave no person living with HIV behind and we work with partners across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, to advocate to maintain HIV as a public health priority," the duo said. "We will continue to work alongside communities as we make progress to achieve the UN target of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030."
PatientView is a UK-based research and consultancy group that aims to assist the pharmaceutical industry in better understanding patient needs and hold them to account. conducted the survey for the eleventh consecutive year.