The reputation of the pharmaceutical industry is improving in spite of high-profile negative publicity in the past year, according to the 2016 Global Pharma RepTrak released by Reputation Institute.

“The Global Pharma RepTrak shows that pharmaceutical companies’ reputations are improving, and that the overall reputation is average with the general public around the world. However, the industry has much work to do with younger consumers, with whom trust and admiration is much weaker,” said Kasper Ulf Nielsen, executive partner of Reputation Institute. “These results show that the industry is not perceived as badly as many industry insiders think. That should encourage the pharma companies to engage and communicate more, because the general public wants to know more about the companies behind the drugs, and today 44 to 55% are uncertain about what pharma companies do across the seven dimensions of reputation.”

The RepTrak System measures the general public’s perception of the world’s top 14 pharmaceutical companies on the seven key rational dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance. It is based on more than 23,000 ratings collected in the first quarter of 2016 from respondents who are at least somewhat familiar with the companies.

The top 10 companies in the 2016 Global Pharma RepTrak are:

1. Bayer
2. Abbott Laboratories
3. Novo Nordisk
4. Roche
5. Merck
6. Sanofi
7. Allergan
8. AstraZeneca
9. Eli Lilly
10. AbbVie

Bayer rated highest for products and services, financial performance, leadership and workplace, while Novo Nordisk won on the dimensions of innovation, governance and citizenship.

Overall, the industry earned an average RepTrak Pulse score of 67.6, up from 65.7 in 2015. However, the industry reputation is still very polarized, with roughly one-third of respondents viewing the industry as having an excellent reputation, while another third perceive it as weak or poor. An “excellent” reputation is represented by an overall RepTrak Pulse score of 80 or higher. A RepTrak Pulse score of 70 to 79 is considered “strong,” 60 to 69 is “average,” 40 to 59.9 is “weak” and 0 to 39.9 is “poor.”

The industry performs best among older and higher-income consumers, the only demographic to perceive the industry as having a strong reputation overall. The lowest view of the industry comes among consumers aged 18 to 24, who assigned it a RepTrak Pulse rating of 63.4.

Public perceptions of pharmaceutical companies are improving across all seven dimensions of reputation, and for the first time, the industry as a whole returned strong scores for two dimensions: products and services, and financial performance, with scores of 70.2 and 70, respectively. The weakest perceptions are for governance and citizenship, with scores of 66.5 and 65.5, respectively.