Top 50 Pharma Tracker: HCPs continue to discuss Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine but mentions of Pfizer dramatically decrease

Discover what healthcare professionals (HCPs) think about pharmaceutical products and their manufacturers, as it happens, through CREATION.co’s tracking updates. How are HCPs responding to drug launch news? How are HCPs talking about or engaging with the Top 50 pharma companies on social media? Each week, CREATION.co’s tracking updates bring you the latest insights from the conversation of HCPs across the globe discussing these topics and more.

The Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies mentioned by HCPs on Twitter

The latest insights from HCPs mentioning the Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies

The five pharmaceutical companies that were mentioned the most by HCPs on Twitter during July 2022 were Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and GSK.

CREATION.co identified a 34% decrease in mentions of pharmaceutical companies by HCPs this month compared to last month, with HCP mentions of Pfizer alone dropping from 8,193 to 4,946 posts. In spite of the lower number of mentions in July 2022, the top 5 pharmaceutical companies remained the same as last month.

The second most mentioned pharmaceutical company, Moderna, dominated the retweeted mentions with HCPs expressing both positive and negative sentiments about their COVID-19 vaccine. The most retweeted post by HCPs in July 2022, by Thai doctor Pokrath Hansasuta, receiving over 10,500 retweets, celebrated the efficacy of Moderna boosters provided by health influencer Dr. Eric Topol.

บูสด้วย Moderna มีประสิทธิผลในการป้องกันการติดเชื้อ และป้องกันการเข้าโรงพยาบาล (การติดเชื้อที่มีอาการรุนแรงขึ้น) ดีกว่าไฟเซอร์ – นับว่าโล่งอก ที่ต่อไปจะมีหลักฐานเพิ่มอีก 1 ชิ้นในการแนะนำ (ยังไม่ได้ (peer-reviewed) https://t.co/SBQib93nay

— Pokrath Hansasuta (@pokrath) July 31, 2022

Tweet Translation: Boosting with Moderna is effective in preventing infection and preventing hospitalisation. It’s a relief that there’s one more piece of evidence to suggest (not yet (peer-reviewed)).

On the other hand, the second most retweeted post with over 5,000 retweets was from U.S. surgical oncologist Dr. Marty Makary where he criticised the low efficacy of Moderna’s vaccine in kids aged 6 months to 2 years and celebrated other healthcare professionals who spoke out about the issue.

Why are we doing trials if when a trial shows no clinical benefit in babies & toddlers (i.e. no statistical significance) the FDA & CDC authorizes a vaccine anyway?? This is a very concerning precedent. https://t.co/qNksowUOmn

— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) July 16, 2022

The top shared links by HCPs discussed multiple issues surrounding COVID-19 vaccines:

1. An ICAN Archive about Pfizer’s vaccine data from the FDA’s FOIA Litigation.
   
2. An Article from Common Sense about the efficacy of Pfizer’s vaccine in children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old.
   
3. A Blog Post about a BBC documentary “Unvaccinated”.

Conversation about the Top 50 pharmaceutical companies by HCPs was generally sustained with no particular drivers of conversation this month. Mentions of COVID-19 made up about 39% of the overall conversation with discussions about vaccine efficacy continuing to be the leading topic. 

After primary vax w/Pfizer or AZ, 1.5 million people matched, Moderna v Pfizer booster, during Delta/Omicron
Moderna booster was more effective than Pfizer for preventing infection & COVID-19 hospitalisation during the first 12 weeks after vaccination https://t.co/G4je3pPoFP pic.twitter.com/3bKF1br6im

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 31, 2022

Outside the COVID-19 conversation, at The 24th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022) HCPs mentioned ViiV Healthcare congratulating their new licensing agreement to expand development, manufacturing and supply of their long-acting HIV drug. HCPs shared the news while also sharing news of activists disrupting the conference to campaign for lower prices.

@ProfAdeeba offers congratulations to @ViiVHC & @MedsPatentPool for the new voluntary licensing agreement to expand access to LA-ART #AIDS2022 https://t.co/lZYmtawpPz pic.twitter.com/xAiLrtUg3Y

— Laura Waters (@drlaurajwaters) July 29, 2022

Activists from South Africa’s ⁦@TAC⁩ ⁦@HealthGAP⁩ & others disrupt #aids2022 calling for ⁦@ViiVHC⁩ to lower the price of its #HIV prevention shot & expand its voluntary liscense w/ ⁦@MedsPatentPool⁩ pic.twitter.com/pwHhXqSU2O

— Laura López González (@LLopezGonzalez) July 29, 2022

CREATION.co continues to analyse online HCP conversation on a variety of topics including virtual congress, healthcare changes since the pandemic, product development and therapy area specific insights.

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Methodology notes:

• In July 2022, CREATION Pinpoint^® identified 11,567 healthcare professional (HCP) authored tweets from 5,382 individual HCPs mentioning a Top 50 Pharmaceutical company (according to revenue). 
• Data for this research was analysed from the online Twitter conversations of HCPs in all languages mentioning a Top 50 Pharmaceutical company between 01 July and 31 July 2022.
• Unless otherwise specified, mentions of a company are not limited to its Twitter account(s).
• In some cases, a tweet may mention more than one company account (e.g. @abbottnews and @abbottglobal) – this only counts as one Company Mention and Account Mention.
• Johnson & Johnson was included as a whole, encompassing its pharmaceutical subsidiary, Janssen. In July 111 of these posts mentioned Janssen

View the latest and archived trackers here