Given that the pharmaceutical industry is in the business of saving lives, it beggars belief that an awfully high percentage of the general public have such a poor opinion of it. I have been surprised by some really quite intelligent and educated individuals who don’t get that it costs billions of pounds and takes decades to bring a drug to market, so of course charges have to be high in order to invest in research – not to mentions the cost of development of all the drugs that don’t make it through the clinical trial process. Are companies not allowed to do good and make money at the same time? Apparently not if you listen to some of the characters on soap boxes.
So what is pharma doing about this? Why don’t they defend themselves better? Any ideas out there?
http://www.interbrand.com/Libraries/Articles/22_IBHealth_Reputation_pdf.sflb.ashx
http://www.ted.com/conversations/7794/what_does_the_pharmaceutical_i.html
http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/01/pharma-has-what-kind-of-corporate-reputation/
http://www.produktundmarkt.de/portrait-en/pharmaceutical-industry-battles-a-bad-reputation.php
http://www.pwc.com/he_IL/il/publications/assets/11recapturing.pdf