One of Wendy Lund’s ear­li­est jobs was head of mar­ket­ing at Planned Par­ent­hood. As the youngest per­son on its man­age­ment team, she in­tro­duced them to emerg­ing new tech­nolo­gies, and in re­turn, she learned the im­por­tance of fight­ing for what you be­lieve in.

Now as chief com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer at Organon, the women’s health com­pa­ny re­cent­ly spun off by Mer­ck, Lund is keep­ing that point top of mind. That’s in part be­cause women’s health hasn’t been a spot­light ther­a­py area for Big Phar­ma in years. Sev­er­al com­pa­nies have spun off, sold or at least con­sid­ered sell­ing women’s health as­sets to fo­cus on "core" prod­ucts.

Ab­b­Vie is re­port­ed­ly re­view­ing whether it should sell their $5 bil­lion women’s port­fo­lio as part of its gains in its ac­qui­si­tion of Al­ler­gan, which had it­self looked to sell off the same as­sets in 2018 be­fore get­ting bought in 2019. Te­va sold off its women’s health port­fo­lio in 2018, and Pfiz­er re­port­ed­ly con­sid­ered the same in 2019.

Lund, who most re­cent­ly head­ed GCI Health com­mu­ni­ca­tions and PR agency as CEO for 11 years, says that lack of in­ter­est by oth­ers – in­clud­ing biotechs – ap­pealed to her. She saw Organon as a “well-es­tab­lished start­up” tak­ing on women’s health is­sues  that un­for­tu­nate­ly re­main al­most iden­ti­cal to the ones she worked on at Planned Par­ent­hood more than 20 years ago.

Re­cent stats show about 45% of preg­nan­cies in the US are un­in­tend­ed, that’s about the same rate it was 20 years ago.

Are you ready to rum­ble? DTC brands that is. Mar­ket­ingRx is launch­ing a new month­ly fea­ture to­day called Mar­ket­ingRx Matchup. We’re pit­ting two phar­ma brands’ DTC ad­ver­tis­ing in the same ther­a­peu­tic cat­e­go­ry against each oth­er to find out what con­sumers and pa­tients re­al­ly think.

Mar­ket re­search com­pa­ny Leg­er is han­dling the polling and analy­sis each month, and I'll be writ­ing up the re­sults — along with my own take — in­side MRx on the first Tues­day of the month.

So first up is a lit­er­al head-to-head cam­paign matchup with mi­graine drugs Ubrelvy from Ab­b­Vie and Nurtec ODT from Bio­haven.

Leg­er test­ed three TV ads that all fea­ture mi­graine-suf­fer­ing spokes­peo­ple — a Ubrelvy spot with ten­nis star Ser­e­na Williams, a Nurtec com­mer­cial with ac­tor and talk show host Whoopi Gold­berg and a sec­ond Nurtec ad that fol­lows av­er­age re­al pa­tient named El­lie. The re­searchers showed the ads to 1,001 peo­ple in the US and asked a se­ries of ques­tions, break­ing out spe­cif­ic re­spons­es of the tar­get au­di­ences of peo­ple who have mi­graines.

Be­fore Leg­er pre­viewed the spe­cif­ic TV com­mer­cials, they checked gen­er­al aware­ness, ask­ing if the per­son could re­call see­ing the Ubrelvy or Nurtec ads in the pho­to snap­shot.

Among all peo­ple, 8% re­mem­bered see­ing the Ubrelvy ad and 7% re­mem­ber see­ing the Nurtec ad. How­ev­er, among peo­ple with mi­graine, 11% said they saw the Ubrelvy ad while 18% re­mem­bered the Nurtec ad.

Next Leg­er re­searchers showed the com­mer­cial and asked a se­ries of spe­cif­ic ques­tions to de­ter­mine each one's suc­cess. Did peo­ple un­der­stand the mes­sages that Ab­b­Vie and Bio­haven tried to get across? Do they think the spokes­peo­ple are cred­i­ble?

In the ear­ly days of the pan­dem­ic, peo­ple cheered for nurs­es – de­liv­er­ing food, writ­ing thank you notes and ring­ing bells night­ly to show their ap­pre­ci­a­tion. But some­thing shift­ed this sum­mer, and now John­son & John­son wants to re­mind peo­ple of the grat­i­tude that nurs­es still de­serve.

Call it pol­i­tics or pan­dem­ic weari­ness or the re­sult of al­most two years of a dead­ly pan­dem­ic, but nurs­es to­day face threats and mis­treat­ment from pa­tients and their an­gry fam­i­ly mem­bers. And nurs­es are leav­ing the pro­fes­sion in record num­bers.

J&J’s new ad cam­paign “Nurs­es Rise to the Chal­lenge Every Day” launch­es on­line and in lo­cal news­pa­pers on Sun­day, aim­ing to shine a pos­i­tive spot­light on the pro­fes­sion. It al­so in­cludes J&J dou­bling down on its ed­u­ca­tion, fel­low­ships, schol­ar­ships and pro­grams to sup­port nurs­es.

In the cam­paign video ad, close-up shots re­veal tired nurs­es in scrubs and as they weari­ly re­move masks, a scroll reads: “You give 100% of your­self, then some­how find 50% more.”

At the heart of the cam­paign are the many roles that nurs­es take on: sci­en­tist, pi­o­neer, heal­er and rock star in the video ad, while the print ad lists dozens more in­clud­ing teacher, ther­a­pist, cheer­leader, en­tre­pre­neur, in­flu­encer, dot-con­nec­tor and mind read­er. So­cial me­dia posts have a sim­i­lar theme with “Nurs­es are” in at­ten­tion-get­ting red let­ters, while the roles scroll and change in the gif an­i­ma­tion.

“When you fast for­ward to where we are now and look around on­line, pret­ty much all you see is stress, burnout and turnover – at up­wards of 20% per year,” said Lyn­da Ben­ton, se­nior di­rec­tor of glob­al com­mu­ni­ty im­pact strate­gic ini­tia­tives for J&J Nurs­ing.

What would you do with $100 and the sim­ple in­struc­tion to “spread joy?" That’s what phar­ma and health­care agency Klick Health asked its em­ploy­ees as part of its an­nu­al hol­i­day greet­ing for clients, friends and fu­ture re­cruits.

More than 600 Klick­sters, as the agency folks call them­selves, took up the chal­lenge. For each per­son who signed up, Klick sent a box with a roy­al blue agency brand­ed scarf, cards and a $100 bill. Each per­son filmed them­selves open­ing the box, start­ing out on their “joy” mis­sions and their re­cip­i­ents’ re­ac­tions.

The smart­phone videos were then com­piled in­to a three-minute “#Spread­Joy” hol­i­day video, a process that chief cre­ative of­fi­cer Rich Levy said took about three weeks. While the an­nu­al greet­ing is a pop­u­lar tra­di­tion in­side the com­pa­ny, it al­so serves as a de­fault re­cruit­ing tool with mil­lions of views and al­most every in­ter­vie­wee men­tion­ing they’d seen one of the videos. The 2020 an­i­mat­ed video clocked 4.8 mil­lion views while 5.9 mil­lion watched the last pre­vi­ous live-shot video in 2019.

“When you start get­ting that num­ber of views, every­one sees it and every­one re­mem­bers it. I think peo­ple like them be­cause they show what the com­pa­ny stands for, and peo­ple want to work for com­pa­nies that match their per­son­al val­ues,” Levy said.

In the video, some Klick em­ploy­ees hand big tips to wait­ers or baris­tas, while oth­ers gift the mon­ey to bus dri­vers, cross­ing guards and kind neigh­bors.

Phar­ma com­pa­nies have more dig­i­tal doors to doc­tors than ever be­cause of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, but health­care providers think many can do bet­ter.

While 86% of HCPs rec­og­nize that phar­ma com­pa­nies are more con­sid­er­ate of their needs now, al­most two-thirds (65%) al­so say at least one phar­ma has “spammed” them with dig­i­tal con­tent in the past year. And 64% agree that the vol­ume of dig­i­tal con­tent from phar­ma com­pa­nies is too much, ac­cord­ing to the Ac­cen­ture study set for re­lease Mon­day.

“There’s great op­por­tu­ni­ty here, but al­so great cau­tion to be had,” Suzy Jack­son, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in Ac­cen­ture’s life sci­ence prac­tice, said. “The an­swer is not quan­ti­ty, but qual­i­ty, and mak­ing sure you’re cut­ting through the noise. And if you do so, we’re show­ing that you get re­ward­ed for that.”

That re­ward? More time and at­ten­tion from doc­tors. Time, in fact, is some­thing most HCPs have more of to­day. About three-fourths re­port­ed drops in pa­tient num­bers over the past year, con­sis­tent across spe­cial­ties, in­clud­ing on­col­o­gy (76%), im­munol­o­gy (78%), car­di­ol­o­gy (72%) and gen­er­al prac­tice (73%).

The good news for phar­ma is that more free time – and bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions – trans­lates to more ac­cess with 88% twice as like­ly to meet with a phar­ma rep if it were sim­i­lar to their best in­ter­ac­tions. When ques­tioned fur­ther, they agreed they would be more open to meet­ing oth­ers in the com­pa­ny, open emails and lis­ten to mes­sages from that com­pa­ny ver­sus oth­ers.

Glax­o­SmithK­line is invit­ing every­one to its friend­ly shark tank. Its “Think Tank” chal­lenge launch­ing to­day aims to gath­er the best pitch­es for ideas in mul­ti­ple myelo­ma with a fi­nal pitch-off “Shark Tank” TV show-style fin­ish next year.

The in­no­va­tion con­test kicks off GSK’s big­ger “Tar­get the Fu­ture” un­brand­ed cam­paign to ad­vance in­no­va­tion and aware­ness in mul­ti­ple myelo­ma.

“We have a good sense of where the un­met need lies and what tools may be wel­comed by this com­mu­ni­ty, and we’ll con­tin­ue to do that as part of this pro­gram, but the 'Think Tank’ kick­off is to bring new ideas to the ta­ble — things that come from a more grass­roots per­spec­tive than a large phar­ma per­spec­tive,” Chris­tine Roth, se­nior VP and glob­al head of on­col­o­gy at GSK, said.

En­tre­pre­neurs, pa­tients, physi­cians, care­givers and ad­vo­cates can sub­mit ideas on­line through Feb. 11. Three fi­nal­ists will be cho­sen to do a live pitch, de­pen­dent on pub­lic health con­di­tions, to on­col­o­gy ex­perts from both in­side and out­side GSK for a top prize of $100,000 and GSK ad­vi­sors and guid­ance to bring the idea to life. The win­ning idea will be judged on im­pact, nov­el­ty, and fea­si­bil­i­ty of ex­e­cu­tion.

The mul­ti-year cam­paign, and now an­nu­al con­test, is nec­es­sary in mul­ti­ple myelo­ma be­cause both treat­ment and care so­lu­tions are still in de­mand. That’s in part be­cause while the can­cer is man­age­able with drug op­tions, it is not cur­able and meds tend to stop be­ing ef­fec­tive af­ter time.

Health­care screen­ings and clin­i­cal tri­al en­roll­ment were bat­tered by the pan­dem­ic. But the well-known celebri­ty-backed Stand Up To Can­cer non-prof­it, along with phar­ma and ad­vo­ca­cy part­ners, has been work­ing to re­verse that and make up lost ground, by step­ping up aware­ness cam­paigns.

Twelve cam­paigns launched in 2020 and an­oth­er five in 2021 am­pli­fy the need for can­cer screen­ing and care, es­pe­cial­ly for un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties. While phar­ma com­pa­nies have long been donors to the can­cer re­search group, Covid brought new sup­port — and in­creased aware­ness ef­forts.

Rap­per and ac­tor Com­mon most re­cent­ly starred in a Stand Up To Can­cer (SU2C) TV cam­paign to raise lung can­cer treat­ment and clin­i­cal tri­al aware­ness. The TV ad, along with print, dig­i­tal, ra­dio and out-of-home, was backed by $5 mil­lion from Bris­tol Mey­ers Squibb to get the mes­sage out to Black men and women and peo­ple liv­ing in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

Com­mon's pub­lic ser­vice an­nounce­ment fol­lowed an­oth­er celebri­ty-led ef­fort from ac­tor Jamie Foxx for can­cer screen­ing fund­ed by Ex­act Sci­ences. In his PSA, Foxx press­es peo­ple to “take con­trol and get screened for col­orec­tal can­cer” in TV, print, ra­dio, dig­i­tal and out-of-home cam­paigns.

Am­gen is an­oth­er phar­ma part­ner back­ing print, dig­i­tal and out-of-home ads for SU2C's Health Eq­ui­ty Ini­tia­tive to in­crease clin­i­cal tri­al aware­ness and par­tic­i­pa­tion. The ef­fort in­cludes a se­ries of ads aim­ing to in­crease di­ver­si­ty in clin­i­cal tri­als with co­me­di­an and ac­tor Cedric the en­ter­tain­er and ac­tors Sonequa Mar­tin-Green and Jaime Camil.

Every au­tumn, leaves fall from the trees and peo­ple start hol­i­day shop­ping – and for the last few years Pfiz­er de­buts a new “Know Pneu­mo­nia” aware­ness TV ad. This year the com­mer­cial, launched a week ago, fea­tures dif­fer­ent peo­ple who talk about why they got vac­ci­nat­ed against pneu­mo­coc­cal pneu­mo­nia. Ac­tors por­tray a young fe­male fire­fight­er with asth­ma, a me­chan­ic with heart dis­ease and an old­er woman with her grand­child. A Pfiz­er spokesper­son de­clined com­ment on the lat­est it­er­a­tion of the long-run­ning cam­paign.

While the ef­fort is un­brand­ed, it be­gan dur­ing Pfiz­er’s long-run­ning Pre­vnar 13 pneu­mo­coc­cal vac­cine run. Pfiz­er’s best-sell­ing drug – notch­ing sales of just un­der $6 bil­lion in 2020 – has al­so been the world’s top-sell­ing vac­cine for more than a decade, on­ly end­ing this year be­cause of Covid-19 vac­cines.

The next it­er­a­tion of the vac­cine, a 20-va­lent pneu­mo­coc­cal vac­cine du­ly named Pre­vnar 20, re­ceived FDA ap­proval in June. Pfiz­er re­cent­ly post­ed pos­i­tive study re­sults from test­ing a dual Pre­vnar 20 and sea­son­al in­fluen­za vac­ci­na­tion sched­ule.

Pfiz­er's top spot in pneu­mo­coc­cal vac­cines, though, could be in je­or­pardy for the first time this sea­son with com­pe­ti­tion from Mer­ck­'s 15-va­lent Vaxneu­vance ap­proved in Ju­ly. Al­though an­a­lysts ex­pect Pfiz­er to keep a ma­jor­i­ty of the mar­ket, Mer­ck may cap­ture a siz­able mi­nor­i­ty.

Pos­si­bly spurring the mar­ket share war even more this sea­son is CDC guid­ance to add chron­ic con­di­tion rec­om­men­da­tions to the tra­di­tion­al 65-plus tar­get. For the first time, the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Im­mu­niza­tion Prac­tices (ACIP) added adults 19-64 with un­der­ly­ing chron­ic con­di­tions in­clud­ing di­a­betes, as well as heart, lung and kid­ney dis­ease.

The safe­ty prob­lems that con­tin­ue to plague the JAK class as new da­ta high­light some se­vere side ef­fects are cast­ing a large shad­ow over Ab­b­Vie’s Rin­voq.

As a re­sult of a re­cent read­out high­light­ing ma­jor ad­verse car­diac events (MACE), ma­lig­nan­cy, mor­tal­i­ty and throm­bo­sis with Xel­janz a cou­ple of months ago, Ab­b­Vie put out a no­tice late Fri­day af­ter­noon that the class risks are be­ing added to its la­bel for their ri­val drug, which will now be rel­e­gat­ed to sec­ond-line use.

Says Ab­b­Vie:

That's not go­ing to help their mar­ket­ing ef­forts, notes SVB Leerink's Ge­of­frey Porges, but it's not as bad as the black box alert the agency re­quired for Pfiz­er's block­buster Xel­janz. Porges not­ed: