Study: Drug industry's reputation falls in 2012

The study was conducted and funded from mid-November to mid-December 2012 by PatientView, an independent global research organization with close ties to patient and health groups from 56 different countries. The study results express the views of 40 patient groups (600 respondents) regarding 29 individual pharmaceutical companies and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.

Participating patient groups were required to know enough about the pharmaceutical companies and industry to assess them meaningfully. The 40 patient groups represent the full spectrum of brain diseases, including neurological diseases, mental disorders and chronic diseases.


The participating patient groups were asked to assess pharmaceutical companies' abilities on six parameters:
 

1. Best at having a patient-centred strategy
2. Best at providing high-quality information to patients
3. Best at having a good record on patient safety
4. Best at providing high-quality products
5. Best at being transparent with external stakeholders
6. Best at acting with integrity

The six parameters were determined in consultation with patient groups and the pharmaceutical industry.

Overall, the reputation of the pharmaceutical industry declined in 2012, the study finds. Only 34% of the 600 patient groups told the latest survey that multinational drugmakers had an "excellent" or "good" reputation, compared with 42% for 2011. And 40% of the groups said that the sector's reputation had declined last year, with 50% judging the industry's pricing policies to be "poor."

Other indicators used by the survey also showed sharp falls in the industry's reputation between 2011 and 2012; for example, on companies' management of adverse news about a product the drop was 29%, while for having ethical marketing practices it was 23% and for having a good relationship with the media the decline was 19%. 

Among the reasons given by the patient groups for the fall in the industry's reputation last year was its perceived continuing failure to help patients in cash-strapped southern European countries such as Greece, Portugal, Romania and Spain to gain access to medicines. 

The groups also criticise pharma for: - a perceived preoccupation with drugs that offer only short-term health benefits; - making insufficient effort to discover new chemical entities (NCOs) suitable for neglected groups of patients; - inappropriate marketing of drugs, including for off-label indications; - a perceived lack of transparency, especially in reporting disappointing results of clinical trials; and - for pricing their products at levels which are, in some cases, still unaffordable to many patients or their payers, culminating in a general impression that "profit comes before making people well."

Many of the 600 patients referred to negative press during the year to explain why they had downgraded their opinion of some companies, particularly on issues of transparency, patient safety and company integrity. Drugmakers with a high exposure to "bad" stories in 2012 saw their rankings drop, while other, less-affected firms benefited as a result.

The top 10 companies for 2012, with their 2011 rankings in brackets, were judged to be: 1- Lundbeck (3); 2 - Gilead Sciences (10); 3 - Novartis (1); 4 - Janssen (not featured); 5 - Pfizer (2); 6 - Abbott (8); 7 - Novo Nordisk (11); 8 - Roche (9); 9 - Lilly (18); and 10 - GlaxoSmithKline (4).

The other firms examined were Allergan, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Baxter International, Bayer, Biogen Idec, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Menarini, Merck & Co (US), Merck Group (Germany), Sanofi, Servier, Shire, Stada Arzneimittel, Takeda, Teva and UCB.