On the podium ViiV, Roche and AbbVie
The pharmaceutical industry is the health care sector with the best reputation as judged from the patient's point of view. The latest report by the British research company Patient View tells us this, which questioned 1,850 patient associations from all over the world. At the top of the ranking, which includes 48 companies, there is ViiV, which for the 
seventh consecutive year conquers the primacy, followed by Roche and Abbvie.
Pharmastar – Elisa Spelta – April 22, 2020
The pharmaceutical industry is the health care sector with the best reputation as judged from the patient's point of view. Better than biotech or pharmacies, generic companies and health insurers. The latest report by the British research company Patient View tells us this, which questioned 1,850 patient associations from all over the world.
In 2019, 46% of patient groups surveyed rated Big Pharma's reputation as "excellent" or "good", versus 41% in 2018. At the top of the ranking, which includes 48 companies, are VIIV, which conquers the record for the seventh consecutive year, followed by Roche And Abbvie.
The reputation of pharmaceutical companies
Carried out between November 2019 and February 2020, the survey assessed the reputation of 48 pharmaceutical companies in relation to 12 key indicators, including patient centrality, information, safety, product quality, 
transparency (on pricing policies, stakeholder funding, clinical trials), integrity, quality of patient relationship, service delivery and patient involvement in research and development.
Of the 48 companies analysed, eight provided a variety of information on their patient-centred strategies and their projects conducted in 2019 or planned for 2020 to improve their reputation from a patient perspective.
These 8 companies are: Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead Sciences, Ipsen, Lundbeck (US division), Merck KGaA/EMD Serono, Novartis, Pfizer and ViiV Healthcare
Overall, the surveyed patient groups ranked pharmaceutical companies first in terms of overall reputation out of 9 sectors in healthcare, such as biotechnology, generic drug, medical device, health insurance, pharmacies, etc. In 2018, Big Pharma's reputation ranked third.
Patient groups surveyed also stated that the pharmaceutical industry's performance in activities important to patients has improved most since 2018. Activities rated most important to patients were: manufacturing high-quality medicines (for 53% of patients), ensure a high degree of safety (49%), be innovatives (48%).
The patient groups interviewed clearly perceived that the pharmaceutical industry, despite the improvements it has made, still has room for improvement, particularly in some areas such as: transparency, patient involvement in R&D and fair pricing policy.
The companies with the best reputation
Even this year, VII Healthcare, the British company specializing in HIV medicines, ranked first among 205 patient groups who said they were familiar with the company. Since 2013, the company has held the first position in the PatientView ranking.
Roche ranks second according to the 1,155 patient groups surveyed. In 2018, it ranked 6th. Roche's 2019 overall rating is the company's highest in the nine years that PatientView conducted the Corporate-Reputation survey.
In third place we find Abbvie, according to the 708 patient groups surveyed who know about it (up from 5th place in 2018).
Other companies maintained gradual but continuous growth, such as AstraZeneca, which made the biggest jump in the overall rankings for corporate reputation. In 2019, the company ranked 13th out of 48 companies, according to the 805 patient groups that know about it, up 16 spots from 29th in 2018.
CSL Behring has moved up 15 places in the 'Corporate-Reputation' ranking. The 226 patient groups familiar with the company ranked the company 17th in 2019, up from 32nd in 2018.
Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi and Servier have continued to grow steadily in recent years.
What are the patient associations that participated
In all, 1,850 organizations were contacted from 95 countries covering 124 therapeutic areas: autoimmune diseases, bleeding disorders, cancer, HIV/AIDS, mental health, neurology, rare diseases, respiratory diseases and more.
Among the participating countries: Canada, Germany, Italy, Asia, Spain, United Kingdom and USA.
For 62%, these are single-country patient organizations and for 8%, they are international companies. Over 1860, 1234 (67%) had partnerships with drug companies.
