Pharma’s corporate reputation begins to slide following Covid surge

According to a recent report, after experiencing a brief boost during the pandemic, the pharma industry’s reputation has begun to drop again in the public’s eye.

According to PatientView's annual pharma corporate reputation report, released this week, Pharma’s corporate reputation fell throughout 2023 after reaching a peak in 2021 and 2022.

The report, which surveyed more than 2,500 patient groups worldwide, sought to pinpoint how people in 106 different countries viewed the pharma industry between November 2023 and February 2024.

The survey included more than 40 pharma companies, including blue-chip names like AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Gilead Sciences, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer.

Of those drugmakers, ViiV Healthcare, Gilead, and Roche finished in the top three spots. Among Big Pharmaceutical companies, Gilead, Roche, and Pfizer topped the list.

57% of patient groups said the pharma industry’s reputation was “excellent or good” in 2023, compared to 60% in 2022.

A handful of countries—including the Netherlands, Denmark, Taiwan, and Sweden—saw an increase in the percentage of patient groups reporting that pharma had a top-tier reputation.

However, plenty of countries—including the U.S., Mexico, Germany and Finland—reported a drop in terms of how they viewed pharma companies.

Most patient groups pointed to several issues that they believe the pharma industry needs to address: pricing drugs more equitably, improving access to medications and allowing patients to have greater involvement in research and development.

More than half of surveyed patient groups said pharma companies are “fair” or “poor” at equitable pricing policies and had the same opinion of the industry’s ability to ensure access to medicines.

One national patient group focused on neurological conditions in Canada pointed out the drug shortage problem, which is plaguing medications from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to anti-seizure drugs.

The patient group noted in a statement that “the pharma companies could better communicate the reasons, timelines to resolve, and actions being taken to resolve the shortages. Otherwise, people are left in the dark.”

Another patient group based in the Netherlands lamented that pharma companies don’t engage patients enough in their R&D efforts.

“Most companies will publicly claim their strategies are patient-focused, but that’s just what’s written into documents and doesn’t translate into meaningful actions across different areas of the company,” the patient group said in a statement.

During the pandemic, major drugmakers like Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca saw a boost in reputation, which was linked to their speed and efficacy in producing vaccines and treatments for Covid-19.

However, in the years since high drug costs have increasingly become a focus among the public and policymakers in the U.S.

Congress has sought to advance more drug pricing reform, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has criticised pharmaceutical companies for their high price tags.