Pfizer's work on a new COVID vaccine and treatment helped the New York-based company become the most reputable pharma in the eyes of autoimmune patients last year.
That’s according to the latest report (PDF) from PatientView, which between November 2021 to February 2022 collected the opinions of 293 autoimmune patient groups via an online survey on how they saw the performance of the pharma industry throughout 2021.
PatientView then takes these data and spreads them out across various data points, but, whichever way they sliced it, Pfizer came out on top.
First up, PatientView takes the data and compiles a list of the top three out of the 27 pharma companies that sell autoimmune drugs. The companies are ranked for their overall corporate reputation and are specific to those autoimmune patient groups that are familiar with the companies but not necessary groups that work with them. Here, Pfizer came up ahead of the pack, while AbbVie was second and Novartis was third.
It was a similar story when the top three were ranked by autoimmune patient groups specifically working with the company. Pfizer again came up on top, with AbbVie also once again in second, but this time Japanese pharma Takeda came in third.
Pfizer markets several big-selling autoimmune drugs including, most recently, Cibinqo, an oral eczema treatment, as well as arthritis treatment Xeljanz. AbbVie, one of the biggest names in the autoimmune field, sells mega blockbuster Humira—which makes $20 billion a year—for a host of autoimmune and immunology conditions, and the company has newer follow-ups in Rinvoq and Skyrizi.
Takeda and Novartis market several autoimmune drugs, and it is therefore no surprise to see them in the top three.
It’s also good news for the pharma industry overall. The 293 autoimmune patient groups ranked the pharma industry’s overall corporate reputation as higher than that of all other healthcare sectors including biotech, retail pharmacists, generic drug and medical device companies.
The report found that 63% rated the pharma industry’s corporate reputation as “Excellent” or “Good,” with this figure jumping from the 47% average it hit during the four years in which the autoimmune arm of the "Corporate Reputation" survey ran the process.
But it is Pfizer that takes the overall win, something the pharma is getting used to, having been soaring high across several reputation lists over the pandemic years of 2020 to 2022—including the likes of The Harris Poll and several PatientView rankings as well—and most recently coming up on top with cancer patients.
This, the report says, is directly linked to its work that saw it create a new COVID vaccine with BioNTech and treatment in Paxlovid.
The report’s authors said the perceived increase in the pharma industry’s corporate reputation by autoimmune patient groups “is inevitably due, in part at least, to the industry’s efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
They found that 79% of 2021’s respondent autoimmune patient groups rated the pharma industry’s response to the pandemic as “Very effective” or “Effective” (noticeably up on 2020’s figure of 61%).
PatientView said autoimmune patients— typically a chronic population that knows their condition and drugs very well given that it is a lifelong battle with the disease—are well placed to understand and rank pharma companies. “Patient groups—and autoimmune patient groups especially—possess a deep and unique understanding of the patients they represent and express the collated views of these patients,” the report’s authors wrote.
The report added that autoimmune condition patient groups also “played a key role” in keeping the patients they represent informed and supported during the pandemic, “and they clearly valued the help industry provided them at the time.”
That may go some way to explain why AbbVie, which in terms of sales and drug offerings is the world’s premier autoimmune drug maker, came in second to Pfizer. It’s also interesting to note that Sanofi and Regeneron are not in the top three (a full ranking was not provided), despite marketing Dupixent, a major new autoimmune blockbuster that could one day rival the sales Humira has been bringing in at peak.