Top 50 Pharma Tracker: HCPs share mixed opinions on COVID-19 vaccines and treatment data

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 June 2022 were Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and GSK.

CREATION.co identified an increase in mentions of pharmaceutical companies by HCPs this month compared to last month, increasing from 16,943 to 17,585 posts. Following a new list of Top 50 Companies posted by Pharmaceutical Executive Moderna made its first appearance in the top five most mentioned pharmaceutical companies by HCPs online. Other companies that are now being analysed in CREATION.co’s Top 50 Pharma Tracker include, Stada, Organon, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Viatris, CSPC, and Kyowa Kirin.

Unsurprisingly, Moderna’s jump from outside the Top 50 to the second most mentioned pharmaceutical company in June 2022 was largely because of conversation surrounding Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, as evidenced by Oncologist Vinay Prasad’s post which specifically mentioned the Moderna vaccine while expressing his opinion on vaccine safety.

It confirms the worst estimates👇
We saw this nearly a year ago
We advised spacing doses, trials testing omitting dose 2, lower doses in men…
Advised banning moderna 12-40yo as done in Europe
Discouraged mandates
CDC took no action
They didn't take vaccine safety seriously https://t.co/hmCStYE9Eb

— Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) June 25, 2022

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

1. An FDA News Release about the authorisation of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to include use in children down to 6 months of age. 
2. A Report from Pfizer showing additional data on PAXLOVID™ supporting upcoming new drug application submission to U.S. FDA.
3. An FDA Briefing Document submitted for amendment for the use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in children under 5.

The prominent driver of conversation in June 2022 came from HCP discussions following the release of EPIC-SR trial results which investigated the efficacy of PAXLOVID™, Pfizer’s anti-viral drug to treat COVID-19 and the FDA’s approval of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for young children. Infectious disease specialist, David Boulware felt there was a lack of efficacy data for PAXLOVID™, highlighting that there was no proven benefit shown in the trial.

@Pfizer belatedly releases EPIC-SR summary results.
As expected, no proven benefit (n=1153).

Hospitalization: #Paxlovid 5/576;
Placebo: 10/569
51% relative risk reduction (95%CI, -44% to 83%)
No difference in time of symptom resolutionhttps://t.co/0Bny7ncJYE

— David Boulware, MD MPH (@boulware_dr) June 15, 2022

Prominent HCP Dr Eric Ding, alongside other HCPs, shared the news of the unanimous vote by the FDA to recommend the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for children under five years old. Dr Ding called the news ‘momentous’, showing a positive sentiment towards the outcome of the vote.

Momentous—FDA independent advisors vote 21 to 0 to recommend the Moderna and Pfizer #COVID19 vaccines for kids 0.5-4 years old — covering at least 19 million young children in the US. CDC meetings Friday/Saturday. CDC approval likely over weekend. https://t.co/fRQ1n06mT4

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) June 15, 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 June 2022, CREATION Pinpoint^® identified 17,585 healthcare professional (HCP) authored tweets from 6,844 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 June and 30 June 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 June 170 of these posts mentioned Janssen.

View the latest and archived tracker here