PUBLICATION DATE: TUESDAY, JULY 21st, 2020

~ Contact: Alex Wyke ~ Tel: +44-(0)7960-855-019 ~ Email: report@patient-view.com

This is the 6th edition of 'The Corporate Reputation of Pharma - from the Perspective of Italian Patient Groups'. These 2019 results are drawn from a survey of Italian patient groups, conducted November 2019 - February 2020.

About the 2019 survey of Italian patient groups

2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient groups specialised in 45 different therapy areas.
The 100 Italian patient groups had the following geographic remits: 6% an international remit; 61% a national remit; 22% regional (within one country); and 11% local.

On the relationships that Italian patient groups had with pharma, 2019

63% of the 100 Italian patient groups responding to the 2019 survey worked with at least one pharma company.

The 23 companies included for assessment in the 2019 Italian 'Corporate-Reputation' analyses (in alphabetical order):

A note about COVID-19 and the 2019 study’s results

Covid-19 should have a relatively limited impact on many of the results of the PatientView 2019 ‘Corporate-Reputation’ study, because the survey took place (November 2019 to late-February 2020) largely before the crisis became global. However, early announcements about Covid-19 by some pharma companies (during January and February 2020) may have influenced the views of Italian patient groups responding to the ‘Corporate-Reputation’ survey during those last two months of the survey.

What this report contains

Industry-wide analyses: The 2019 Italian 'Corporate-Reputation' report examines the issues of importance to Italian patient groups, including:

• levels of industry innovation; • access to treatments; • transparency of the industry; and • drug pricing.

Analyses are reinforced by extensive feedback from 2019’s respondent Italian patient groups [found in Appendix I], organised according to the disease specialties of the respondent patient groups.

Individual company analyses: The 23 pharma companies are reviewed by 2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient groups for overall corporate reputation, and for performance at 12 individual indicators of corporate reputation.

The 12 indicators used to measure corporate reputation from a patient perspective

Key industry-wide findings for Italy, 2019

Despite expressing a generally-positive attitude to the pharma industry, 2019's 100 respondent Italian patient groups were concerned about pharma's drug pricing policies, and the industry's levels of transparency.

2019’s respondent Italian patient groups (like their peers worldwide) were more positive about the pharmaceutical industry’s corporate reputation than Italian patient groups responding to the 2018 survey. Some 59% of 2019’s respondent Italian patient groups described the industry’s corporate reputation as “Excellent” or “Good”, compared with 56% saying the same in 2018. Italian patient groups have, since 2014, consistently ranked the pharma industry’s corporate reputation higher than their peers in most other parts of the world [see chart below].

The corporate reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, Italy v. global, 2014-2019 (Percentage of respondent patient groups stating “Excellent” or “Good”)

The majority of Italian patient groups undoubtedly appreciate the pharmaceutical industry’s high-quality products. 50% of 2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient organisations described the industry as “Excellent” or “Good” at creating high-quality products (although this figure was down on the 2018 equivalent of 61%).

However, aside from their relatively-high rating for the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to provide high-quality products of benefit to patients, most of 2019’s respondent Italian patient groups marked the industry less favourably for a range of other activities of importance to Italian patients.

Undoubtedly, the thinking of patient groups was influenced by the fact that drug-pricing and transparency issues dominated the Italian pharma scene throughout 2019. Indeed, in August 2019, Italy released a decree on new rules for negotiating drug pricing with the State, requiring greater transparency in previously-confidential discounting arrangements.

Relationships between Italian patient groups and pharma, 2019

These efforts by Italy to improve the transparency of company drug-pricing negotiations with the State increased tensions between the pharma industry and Italian patient organisations in 2019. Only 29% of 2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient groups judged pharma “Excellent” or “Good” at relationships with partner patient groups (the equivalent figure from patient groups worldwide was 42%).

Percentage of respondent Italian patient groups stating that pharma was “Excellent” or “Good” at innovation, 2015-2019

Percentage of respondent Italian patient groups stating that pharma was “Excellent” or “Good” at patient-group relationships, 2016-2019

Pricing, transparency, and access to medicines, 2019

On fair pricing policies: Only 8% of 2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient groups felt that the pharma industry was “Excellent” or “Good” at having fair pricing policies.
On transparency of pricing policies: Only 13% of 2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient organisations thought the pharma industry “Excellent” or “Good” at transparency of pricing policies (although this negative sentiment was echoed by patient groups worldwide—14% of 2019’s 1,850 respondent patient groups worldwide stated the same).
On access to medicines: Just 22% of 2019’s 100 respondent Italian patient groups believed the pharma industry to be “Excellent” or “Good” at helping patients gain access to their medicines (compared with a figure of 26% from 2019’s respondent patient groups worldwide).

Lega Italiana Sclerosi Sistemica [the Italian League for Systemic Sclerosis] (APS), called for better access to medicines through more-equitable pricing mechanisms:

“Equo accesso, ossia un prezzo che possa essere sostenuto dal SSNN e che porti il farmaco a un numero più ampio possibile di pazienti (vd. biologico vs biosimilare). Payment at results è stato un compromesso eccellente nelle terapie CAR-T.”
(“Fair access, or a price that can be sustained by the Italian Health Service, and that makes the drug available to the largest-possible number of patients—see biological versus biosimilar. Payment at results has been an excellent compromise in CAR-T therapies.”)

Key company findings for Italy, 2019

Roche was ranked overall 1st out of 23 companies for corporate reputation in Italy in 2019 by the 74 respondent Italian patient groups familiar with the company. Roche was ranked overall 2nd out of seven companies by its 33 respondent Italian patient-group partners.

Novo Nordisk was ranked overall 2nd out of 23 companies for corporate reputation in Italy in 2019 by the 26 respondent Italian patient groups familiar with the company. Too few of Novo Nordisk’s Italian patient-group partners responded to the 2019 survey to permit worked-with analyses of the company.

Pfizer was ranked overall 3rd out of 23 companies for corporate reputation in Italy in 2019 by the 64 respondent Italian patient groups familiar with the company. Pfizer was ranked overall 1st in 2019 out of seven companies by its 22 respondent Italian patient-group partners.

Comparing just the 14 largest pharma companies (‘big pharma’), Italy, 2019 v. 2018

To enable peer-to-peer comparisons of the results, PatientView recalculates overall rankings for the 12 indicators of corporate reputation for just the 14 largest, multinational, multi-therapy pharma companies. These ‘big-pharma’ results provide a different perspective on how the largest pharmaceutical companies fare for corporate reputation—enabling true peer-to-peer analyses. (Takeda/Shire was added to this listing in 2019 for the first time.)

For further information on PatientView's latest publication, ‘The Corporate Reputation of Pharma—from the Perspective of Italian Patient Groups, 2019’, please use the contact details at the top.

To download the publication's contents, list of tables and charts, and sample materials, please click below:

LINK TO SAMPLE PAGES OF 2019's ITALIAN ANALYSIS

~END OF NOTIFICATION~