Stake pharma’s reputation on it! Study finds pharma companies are reputable but competition is tight

A study from the Reputation Institute has shown that the reputation of the pharmaceutical industry is strong, with public perceptions improving across eight key markets, but competition within the industry is tight.

The annual Global Pharma RepTrak report is based on over 16,500 reputations ratings collected from the general public in the first two months of the year in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, UK and US. Based on the report results, it was found that the pharmaceutical industry had a strong reputation level, with a RepTrak score of 71.8%, which had increased from the prior year’s 68.2%. Moreover, just under half of the respondents thought the industry had an excellent reputation and a little over a quarter thought it had a weak or poor reputation, which were better results than the previous year.

“It may be surprising to many that the industry has such a good reputation amongst the general public, however, engaging positively and proactively has clearly paid off,” said James Bickford, managing director, Reputation Institute. “Interestingly, individual pharma companies have performed particularly well on perceptions of key competencies — products and services, innovation and leadership. It is absolutely crucial that these companies are scoring highly on these dimensions, giving them their licence to operate.”

Additionally, the report assessed the perception of 17 pharmaceutical companies on overall perception as well as seven rational dimensions of reputation — products/services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance. Each of the 17 companies were measured by members of the general public who are somewhat or very familiar with them.

The top 10 in this year’s report were AbbVie, Novo Nordisk, Takeda, Roche, Janssen, Gilead, Bayer, Merck, Sanofi and Lilly (from 1–10 respectively). AbbVie, which sat at the top of the rankings, saw a strong improvement in its RepTrak rating on the prior year. “Since the company’s inception less than five years ago, we have worked to raise a better understanding of AbbVie among our key stakeholders,” said Laura Schumacher, executive vice president, External Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, AbbVie. “We are pleased that these efforts have resonated with our global audience and driven greater understanding of who we are and what we stand for as a company.”

However, with only just over six RepTrak points separating the top and bottom of the 17 pharma companies, it was noted that the competition is fierce within the sector in terms of reputation. Reputation Institute stated that investment in reputation pays off, just a five-point increase in the reputation of a company resulted in a 9% increase in recommendation.

“The impact from reputation on the business is massive, which is why the leading companies in the world are managing this asset in a systematic way,” added Bickford.