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.
April’s Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies mentioned by HCPs on Twitter
| June Ranking | May Ranking | Company Name | Total Mentions | Account Mentions | Account Retweets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Pfizer | 32,445 | 1,363 | 35 |
| 2 | 2 | AstraZeneca | 15,113 | 467 | 19 |
| 3 | 3 | Johnson & Johnson | 4,951 | 714 | 96 |
| 4 | 16 | Biogen | 1,854 | 540 | 6 |
| 5 | 4 | GSK | 608 | 196 | 47 |
| 6 | 9 | Novartis | 523 | 385 | 55 |
| 7 | 11 | Gilead | 439 | 139 | 9 |
| 8 | 8 | Roche | 407 | 157 | 59 |
| 9 | 18 | Regeneron | 393 | 65 | 2 |
| 10 | 6 | Sanofi | 371 | 196 | 40 |
| 11 | 12 | Novo Nordisk | 354 | 273 | 22 |
| 12 | 10 | Bayer | 343 | 162 | 13 |
| 13 | 5 | Merck & Co | 312 | 247 | 101 |
| 14 | 7 | Abbott | 289 | 275 | 12 |
| 15 | 13 | Lilly | 206 | 121 | 1 |
| 16 | 15 | BMS | 184 | 162 | 3 |
| 17 | 17 | Boehringer Ingelheim | 177 | 143 | 17 |
| 18 | 32 | Mylan | 150 | 2 | 0 |
| 19 | 14 | AbbVie | 133 | 82 | 13 |
| 20 | 23 | Otsuka | 113 | 8 | 0 |
| 21 | 19 | Fresenius | 79 | 63 | 26 |
| 22 | 20 | Amgen | 77 | 62 | 18 |
| 23 | 24 | UCB | 71 | 66 | 29 |
| 24 | 37 | Eisai | 64 | 28 | 0 |
| 25 | 21 | Takeda | 57 | 50 | 3 |
| 26 | 22 | Teva | 52 | 47 | 32 |
| 27 | 26 | Merck KGaA | 47 | 40 | 9 |
| 28 | 29 | Servier | 45 | 32 | 5 |
| 29 | 30 | CSL | 40 | 37 | 6 |
| 30 | 28 | Chugai | 36 | 9 | 1 |
| 31 | 33 | Alexion | 34 | 24 | 3 |
| 32 | 25 | Ipsen | 33 | 21 | 11 |
| 33 | 38 | Daiichi Sankyo | 32 | 21 | 4 |
| 36 | 35 | Astellas | 20 | 15 | 1 |
| 36 | 40 | Bausch | 20 | 3 | 0 |
| 36 | 34 | Allergan | 20 | 1 | 0 |
| 37 | 27 | Menarini | 16 | 14 | 6 |
| 39 | 36 | Vertex | 15 | 15 | 0 |
| 39 | 31 | Grifols | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| 40 | 39 | Sun | 8 | 3 | 0 |
| 41 | 41 | Sumitomo Dainippon | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Yunnan Baiyao | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Shanghai | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Meiji | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Jiangsu Hengrui | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Endo | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Aurobindo | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Ono | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Sino | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 50 | Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma | 0 | 0 | 0 |
April’s insights from HCPs mentioning the Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies
During the month of April 2021, the most talked about pharmaceutical companies by healthcare professionals (HCPs) on Twitter moderately changed from the previous month. The four most talked about companies remained the same, while the company Merck & Co made it to the fifth place. The final ranking was AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson (J&J), GSK, and Merck & Co.
This month HCPs continued discussing the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines when mentioning pharmaceutical companies on Twitter. Blood clots as a possible side effect from their COVID-19 vaccine drove AstraZeneca mentions. While some HCPs only shared articles addressing the development of blood clots in patients after receiving the vaccine, others shared their opinions and advocated for people to get the vaccine by saying that benefits outweigh the risks.
AstraZeneca however was not the only company mentioned due to side effects developed from vaccines. On April 13, a spike in conversation was generated after the FDA & CDC issued a halt on the J&J COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, increasing mentions about J&J and positioning the company as the third most mentioned this month.
In April, the volume of HCP posts about top 50 pharma companies increased when compared to the month of March. This was due primarily to the discussion about blood clots as side effects from the Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine; the company mentions increased by 60% from last month.
Breaking: FDA asks states to pause J & J vaccine due to blood clots in 6 women age 18 to 48.
J & J vaccine is an adenoviral vector vaccine, as is the Astra Zeneca vaccine
These unusual clots have NOT been seen with mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna) vaccines.https://t.co/JkHbTPc6uu
— Vincent Rajkumar (@VincentRK) April 13, 2021
The three most shared links by HCPs in April were:
- A New York Times article about Katalin Kariko, whose mRNA vaccines research was praised by HCPs since she was able to influence the development of the COVID-19 Pfizer and Moderna vaccines despite not having a lab or grants.
- A news article from EMA (European Medicines Agency) showing they have found a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and unusual blood clots.
- A CNN news article addressing an ongoing trial that shows the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after six months.
The volume of COVID-19 conversation in the context of top 50 pharma increased from March to April by 7%, and it made up 77% of the overall HCP conversation in April.
Outside of the COVID-19 conversation, HCPs also used their social media channels to discuss and bring awareness of different topics. HCPs in India mentioned Roche when discussing a shortage issue for their drug tocilizumab and asked the NHA (National Health Authority) for support, and Eli Lilly was mentioned due to the safety and efficacy of their drug, selpercatinib, for the treatment of all cancers.
Huge shortage & black marketing of Tocilizumab. Cipla not getting allocation of Tocilizumab from Roche Switzerland. Why isn't Indian Ambassador to Switzerland @AmbassadorMohta not taking up the issue with Roche for India specific allocation? CEO NHA @PraveenGedam please try
— Mrs Anjali Damania (@anjali_damania) April 23, 2021
Novartis announces positive result of phase III study with radioligand therapy 177Lu-PSMA-617 in patients with advanced prostate cancer | @OncoAlert @PCFnews @PCF_Science @DanaFarber_GU @Novartis https://t.co/oAfQoqqlZZ
— Toni Choueiri, MD (@DrChoueiri) March 23, 2021
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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- In April 2021, CREATION Pinpoint® identified 90,475 healthcare professional (HCP) authored tweets from 24,312 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 April 1st and April 30th 2021.
- 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 (eg. @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 April, 3,878 of these posts mentioned Janssen.
