PatientView’s annual pharma reputation report, as scored by global patient groups, ranked Roche, ViiV Healthcare and Horizon Therapeutics as the most reputable pharma companies last year as Pfizer fell out of the top three.
The report, which asked more than 2,200 patient groups around the world which they view as the most reputable pharma companies, is broken down into two sections. The first is a ranking of the most reputable pharmas based on responses from patient groups that know of the companies but do not work directly with them.
In that ranking, oncology major Roche took first place, HIV/AIDS specialist ViiV Healthcare came in second and rare disease drugmaker Horizon Therapeutics took the third spot.
The second section is based on responses from patient groups that do work directly with the pharmas they are ranking, which PatientView says is a major 88% of all respondents.
Here, the order was a little different: ViiV, which often tops these rankings, did so again in 2022, with Horizon second and Roche third. ViiV also took the top spot in 2021, with Pfizer taking second and Roche rounding out the top three.
Pfizer, riding high from its COVID-19 vaccine in previous years, now appears to be settling back out of the podium spots.
We also saw cystic fibrosis drug maker Vertex, France’s Servier and U.S. Big Pharma Merck as the top three biggest rising reputation stars, meaning their rankings moved the most year over year. Vertex was up 14 places, Servier 12 and Merck nine compared to 2021 and as assessed by patient groups who work with the companies.
The industry’s response to COVID-19 helped boost the feel-good factor for pharma in 2020 and 2021, PatientView’s report found, though that could be cooling off. In 2020, 50% ranked pharmas' reputation as "excellent" or "good," and that jumped to 59% in 2021. Last year, the number only nudged up to 60%.
There is also a dark spot when it comes to access to medicines. Just 32% of patient groups said last year that pharma was “excellent” or “good” at improving access to medicines, which predominantly focuses on lower pricing and distribution, especially in poorer countries.
In fact, more than half (52%) felt pharma was “fair” or “poor” when it came to boosting access to medicines, with this being felt the most across the African continent.