Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) president Billy Tauzin said the industry needs to see the world and itself through the eyes of patients if it wants to win back the trust and confidence of the American public.
Tauzin’s remarks were made last Friday during a symposium in New York, hosted by the nonprofit industry group New York Pharma Forum, to debate the impact of the industry’s negative image.
One of the ways the industry is combating its image problem is by attempting to grant greater access to patients, Tauzin explained. “We must do better in providing access to both care and information about our medicines, our industry and health care in general,” Tauzin said.
Tauzin was joined by a panel of speakers that included Hatsuo Aoki, representative director and chairman of Astellas Pharma and president of the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association; Helen Ostrowski, chief executive of international public relations firm Porter Novelli; and Wall Street Journal front page editor Peter Landers.
“The concerns by many patients that the medicines we make will not be available to them plays a significant role in the loss of trust that afflicts this industry,” Tauzin added.
“The pharmaceutical industry is an industry that is not loved and not admired and we have to face that. We’ve known about the problem of failing trust and public skepticism for a long, long time. It is way overdue that we do more than (just) talk about it.”