This is likely because it reflects global opinion rather than that of just the US – a region that falls into a category that the report suggests generally distrusts pharma. In contrast to the Gallup report, Caliber’s research suggests that the reputation of pharma has increased significantly in the past two years. The 14 big pharma companies included in the analysis were: AbbVie, AstraZeneca (AZ), Bayer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Takeda and Teva. Over 13,000 interviews were conducted in 12 European markets, as well as China, Brazil, the US, Canada and Russia. A total of 47,000 evaluations of 67 pharmaceutical companies (including 14 big pharma enterprises) were analysed to establish how pharma’s reputation changed between 20 and ascertain what effect COVID-19 had on the reputation of pharma as a whole, and as individual companies. He explained that their study of pharmaceutical reputation was initially due to be published in early 2020, but after the emergence of COVID-19 it was delayed and extended to enable the reputational impact of the pandemic to be explored. “The score is taken on a week-by-week basis to see how public opinion evolves over time and establish what might be impacting any changes,” said Silbershatz. To measure the reputation of a company, Caliber uses a Trust & Like Score as a measurement of corporate reputation. To understand how the pandemic has impacted the reputation of the industry, European Pharmaceutical Review’s Hannah Balfour discussed the findings of Caliber’s Global Pharma Study 2020 with the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Shahar Silbershatz.

The report was released before COVID-19, which thrusted pharma R&D into the spotlight. The criticisms in the report focused on high drug costs and the industry’s role in the US opioid crisis, suggesting that pharma’s rating is unlikely to recover “until its role in the opioid epidemic is addressed and the political pressure on the industry for high prices and massive profits subsides”. The researchers reported that pharma had the lowest reputation score since the US analytical company Gallup began polling public opinion of industries in 2001.

This negative public perception was highlighted in a report published in September 2019, which found that pharma had the worst reputation of all industries according to the American public. The pharmaceutical industry, and in particular big pharma, has been hampered with reputational issues for years.

Big pharmaceutical companies