The 42% of patient associations thinks that, in general, multinational drug companies have a "good" or "excellent" reputation. This was revealed by a survey conducted by PatientView among the 500 main and most influential patient associations in 61 countries around the world.
Swiss Novartis gets the best evaluation, with the highest score in 4 of the 6 indicators evaluated among 30 drug companies: whether or not they have an effective patient-oriented strategy; the quality of the information provided to patients; the interest in the safety of the latter; the usefulness of the products to patients. Gilead was rated best on the other two indicators: focus on transparency with external stakeholders and conducting business with integrity.
Factors in which Novartis ranked second and third, respectively. The industries involved were Abbott, Actavis, Allergan, Amgen, Astellas, AstraZeneca, Baxter, Bayer, Biogen Idec, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Genzyme, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Lundbeck, Merck &Co and Msd, Merck KGaA, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Nycomed, Pfizer, Ro che, Sanofi, Servier, Shire, Takeda, Teva and Ucb.
Pfizer and Lundbeck rank second and third in global reputation, which PatientView defines as "ability to meet the expectations of patients and their associations." A reputation that all in all does not seem to be the best: only the 42% of patient associations believe that drug multinationals have a "good" or "excellent" reputation, with percentages rising to 44 and 41% for the biotech and generics industries.
Therefore less than the 62% reached by pharmacists, the 54% of private health insurers and the 53% of medical device companies. Only a minority of respondents also think that Big Pharma's reputation has improved over the past five years, with 38% considering it to have declined and 33% calling it unchanged. And while 66% of those interviewed believe that the level of innovation of pharmaceutical companies is "good" or "excellent", only 13% says that companies adopt effective strategies of fair pricing, which avoid unfair profits.
