MarketingRx: Biogen's new CEO talks DTC for depression drug candidate; AbbVie debuts Skyrizi TV ad for Crohn’s

24 Jan 2023
endpts.com
Executive ChangePhase 3AcquisitionDrug Approval
New Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher is already looking ahead to marketing and advertising strategies for zuranolone, Biogen’s major depressive disorder and postpartum candidate with partner Sage Therapuetics now awaiting an FDA decision, according to analysts at SVB Securities. In a note last week, SVB analysts detailed a meeting with a “forthcoming” Viehbacher in early January in which he talked about zuranolone’s potential launch, among other topics. He told analysts the launch will be a different commercial undertaking for Biogen, and will include direct-to-consumer (DTC) television advertising, social media efforts and a focus on primary physicians. Zuranolone, if approved, would be a first-in-class therapy with a unique two-week, once-daily oral dosing schedule, and as noted by Viehbacher to SVB, would require payer education as well. AbbVie nabbed an FDA indication for Skyrizi in Crohn’s disease last June and is now running a TV ad with a connection to its original marketing campaign. The new commercial’s jingle and tagline “Control is Everything” plays off Skyrizi’s original psoriasis work “Nothing is Everything.” The campaign, which also includes digital and Facebook advertising, launched mid-January and marks AbbVie’s third campaign for Skyrizi. Along with psoriasis, AbbVie is also marketing the IL-23 inhibitorIL-23 inhibitor for its indication in psoriatic arthritis. In the Crohn’s commercial, a voiceover notes that Skyrizi is the “first and only IL-23 inhibitorIL-23 inhibitor for Crohn’s.” Other IL-23 inhibitorIL-23 inhibitor candidates to treat Crohn’s may be on the way though, including from Eli Lilly with mirikizumab and Phase III data expected this year, as well as AstraZeneca’s brazikumab which is in Phase IIb/III studies. Pharmaceutical drug distributor AmerisourceBergen is planning to change its name to Cencora later this year to better reflect what the company is today, it said in a press release on Tuesday. The more global name change, following recent acquisitions of Alliance Healthcare and PharmaLexin Europe, “tells a compelling story, boldly differentiates the company, and was created with a future-oriented mindset,” AmerisourceBergen said. CEO Steven Collis was quoted in the release, saying in part, “Building a unified brand is fundamental to our identity as a global healthcare company.” Fewer than one-third of the most common drug brands advertised on TV have high therapeutic value, which was defined as “providing at least moderate improvement in clinical outcomes compared with existing therapies,” according to a recent JAMA-published research letter . The study assessed TV ads for 81 drugs that ran between 2015 and 2021, and notes the findings are consistent with previous pharma direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising research that questions the value of drugs heavily promoted to clinicians. Study authors hypothesized the issue may be that “drugs with substantial therapeutic value are likely to be recognized and prescribed without advertising, so manufacturers have greater incentive to promote drugs of lesser value.” The study divided the top advertised drugs by therapeutic categories with the leading group, immunomodulating agents, at 32.1%, followed by alimentary tract and metabolism drugs at 16% and neurologic drugs at 13.6%. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Sanofi announced a first-ever program to support underrepresented students in healthcare studies. The Sanofi NextGen Scholarship will be available this year in Brazil, France, Japan, the UK and US to pay for tuition and higher education expenses for students who are women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ members or are part of their nation’s ethnic minority and aiming for careers as doctors, nurses, scientists, researchers and other health-related professions, Sanofi said in a press release . The initiative is part of Sanofi’s €50 million ($54 million) “A Million Conversations” effort to improve trust between underrepresented communities and healthcare stakeholders by 2030. A Sanofi study found that almost 75% of people from underrepresented populations say “they have suffered trust damaging healthcare experiences.” It also found that 59% of patients from those communities would like access to providers from diverse backgrounds for healthcare. Last week, MarketingRx ran a feature story with highlights of the newest drug brand names from last year. However, if you’re looking for a deeper dive, check out Brandsymbol’s annual report that goes through each one of the 63 brand names approved by the FDA in 2022. The brand name review, published this month, includes company, indication, dosing and active ingredients, but also comments from Brandsymbol researchers about pronunciation, styles and an analysis on overall name safety across several measures. Amgen is committing $8 million to the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation’s clinical trial program that funds training for clinical trial investigators and researchers from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. So far, the Winn Award Program has trained 114 early-stage investigator physicians and worked with 44 medical students to provide experience in community-based clinical research. The program is currently accepting applications for its third group of physicians and its second group of medical students for the diversity programs. The additional funding from Amgen will help extend the program to more than 300 community-oriented clinical investigators and 300 diverse medical students by 2027, Bristol Myers said in a press release . Dentsu Health tapped Greg Reilly as president after almost two years as global EVP. He joined Dentsu Health from Outcome Health where he headed customer experience and industry sales, and before that worked at Publicis Health Media for more than five years, ending in the role of chief client officer. Wunderman Thompson Health hired Renata Maia as global chief creative officer. Maia joins from Area 23 where she was EVP, group creative director for three and a half years. Before that she was regional creative director at Young & Rubicam New York for nine years. Twitter’s former director of client solutions, health Lisa Bookwalter joined Sharecare as chief revenue officer. Bookwalter spent three and a half years at Twitter and before that worked at Healthline Media for almost eight years, leaving the role of senior director, advertising.
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