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Tuesday
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29 November, 2022 |
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The Twitter turmoil continues with the departure of the pharma and healthcare director amid a now almost entirely stalled pharma ad spend. See the story below for details and stay tuned for more as we roll through the holiday season. Speaking of holidays, today is Giving Tuesday, so don't forget to top off your favorite charities and causes! |
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Beth Snyder Bulik |
Senior Editor, Endpoints News
@BethSBulik
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Illustration: Assistant editor Kathy Wong for Endpoints News |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Pharma advertisers on Twitter are done — at least for now. Ad spending among the previous top spenders flattened even further last week, according to the latest data from ad tracker Pathmatics, amid ongoing turmoil after billionaire boss Elon Musk’s takeover now one month ago. Among 18 top advertisers tracked for Endpoints News, only two are spending, GSK and Bayer. GSK spending for the full week through Sunday was minimal at just under $1,900. Meanwhile, German drugmaker Bayer remains the industry outlier upping its spending to $499,000 last week from $480,000 the previous week. Bayer's spending also marks a big increase from a month ago and before the Musk takeover, when it spent $16,000 per week. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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It’s that time of year again for pop music fans with the return of the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball tour — and Pfizer and BioNTech’s sponsorship. For the second year, the Covid-19 vaccine collaborators are the pharma national sponsors among consumer brand partners, including ESPN, Dunkin, M&Ms, Mercedes and Pepsi. Pfizer and BioNTech are also sponsoring the official Jingle Ball Radio streaming station on iHeart’s network, programmed with music from past and present concert performers. This year they include Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Dove Cameron and Charlie Puth. Pfizer-sponsored radio ads and online video and digital banner ads encourage listeners to get updated Covid-19 booster shots. | WHO phases out monkeypox disease name, replacing with shorter, less stigmatizing ‘mpox’ | In a bid to get rid of the monkeypox name to stem “racist and stigmatizing language” used around it, WHO is changing the disease name to mpox. Both names will be used simultaneously for one year before the name monkeypox disappears from use, although the term will remain searchable in archives. Mpox will be added to the international classification of diseases (ICD) this week, WHO officials said in a statement on Monday, noting that the name change process was accelerated in this case. While the change was expected, the year-long transition may be necessary as monkeypox is a long-established disease name, first named more than 50 years ago in 1970 — and before the WHO best practice guide for naming diseases was published (in 2015). |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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From Hollywood couple endorsements to targeted equity efforts, Merck has been pushing the value of vaccinations, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic disruption. Now the pharma is turning to a new target — vaccine-hesitant parents, and moms in particular. Merck’s “Why Vaccines” latest social media and digital campaign spotlights real-life new moms who have questions about vaccinating their children. In one video, April admits she felt conflicted, worried and unsure about vaccinating her third child after a friend showed her a video about childhood vaccine concerns that “led me down a rabbit hole of misinformation.” April says she ultimately went to the CDC website, talked to her pediatrician and found out she knew someone struggling with the aftereffects of a vaccine-preventable childhood disease before deciding to vaccinate her youngest son — on the same recommended schedule as she had done with her older two children. Merck initially launched the “Why Vaccines” campaign last year with a focus on inter-generational well-being and targeting under-vaccinated groups of people. However, the new Facebook advertising work is aimed at vaccine hesitancy in parents, said Mike Stanton, a Merck VP of marketing in pediatric, hepatitis and pipeline vaccines and vaccines confidence. “Small gaps can lead to big health consequences,” he said, pointing to recent measles outbreaks in Ohio and polio outbreaks in New York. “When you start to ask why are these gaps happening? That’s where we’ve seen this increase in hesitancy in the US. It was here before the pandemic – I don’t want to just blame all hesitancy on the pandemic – … but the polarization and politicization of vaccines has gotten greater during the pandemic.” |
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Dermavant Sciences' first consumer TV ad for its Vtama psoriasis med shows people ready for a new topical treatment. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Dermavant Sciences has been marketing its first product, psoriasis med Vtama, to dermatologists for months, but on Tuesday it rolled out its first consumer campaign. The debut DTC effort including a streaming TV commercial encourages patients to a “Topical Uprising” in a nod to Vtama being a topical cream. In the new commercial, a swell of people discards scarves and jacket coverings, gathering in the street to converge on a pharmacy to demand a steroid-free prescription. A moment of levity follows when a pharmacist says, “You know you can just talk to your doctor, right?” The gathered crowds collectively says, “Oh.” Dermavant VP of marketing Stacey Williams said real patients' insights were the driver behind the campaign — incorporating their frustration at the lack of topical options in the market. While psoriasis biologic injectables and pills are fairly plentiful, only about 20% of patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis use them. The majority of patients use steroid topicals, which are not recommended for daily use, to try to control symptoms. “The idea behind the campaign comes from hearing the voices of the topical patients who aren’t on biologics,” Williams said. “…It’s taken exactly from what these patients talk about and how it feels to live with psoriasis — and quite frankly, their frustration that they haven’t had an option in 25 years.” Dermavant, which is a subsidiary of Roivant and is one of its "Vant" companies, is aiming in the new DTC campaign to target people who have been diagnosed with psoriasis but have decided against, or stopped using, injectables or pills as treatments. |
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Devon Taylor is taking her love of gaming — and its personal health benefits — to the next level as head of 21Gaming. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Real Chemistry’s 21Grams ad agency wants to help pharma clients get in the game, video gaming, that is, with a new dedicated business practice. 21Gaming is ramping up to help clients across video game marketing plays, from custom original titles to simply advertising inside existing games. Leading the group is Devon Taylor, a lifelong gamer who turned to the genre for her own mental health and wellness during postpartum depression after giving birth to her youngest son. She’s not alone, pointing out that two out of three moms play video games as a way to improve their moods and take a brain break. Using video games as a pharma marketing channel isn’t completely new — diabetes insulin pump maker Insulet created Omnipod Bay inside “Animal Crossing” as a diabetes-themed space earlier this year — however, 21Gaming aims to add experience and rigor to it. “We’re honing in the therapeutic elements,” Taylor said. “Seeing the effect on people for mental health and physical health reinforces the fact that this is so far removed from passive entertainment. It is an active form of expression, connection and therapy that you can’t by seeing a display ad or watching a TV show.” The result is more effective marketing — now she and the team at 21Gaming just need to talk to pharma clients about trying it. So far, so good, Taylor said, with pharma and health companies “eager to dive in and get started.” |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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A coalition of pharma companies is doubling down on efforts to encourage suppliers to adopt renewable energy practices. The “Energize” pharma program, launched last year at the climate change conference COP26 with 10 of the world’s largest drugmakers, now includes 15 pharmas, plus a new cohort of suppliers opting into a first-ever power purchase agreement (PPA). The buyers’ group, which includes seven suppliers and two of the pharmas, is pitching in together under Schneider Electric for scale-buying power in Europe and North America. PPAs are attractive for renewable energy providers because the typical 10-20 year long-term deals provide capital for building new projects, including wind farms and solar fields. While the PPA move is a first in pharma, Schneider recently brokered a similar supplier deal for Walmart called the Gigaton PPA. “The goal is to try to advance the execution of those deals in the US and Europe over the course of 2023, but at the same time continue to add more sponsors and recruit more suppliers into the program,” said John Powers, VP, global cleantech and renewables at Schneider Electric. Energize currently has more than 350 suppliers signed up along with 15 pharma companies which are: Amgen, AstraZeneca, Biogen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Chiesi Farmaceutici, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, MSD (Merck in the US), Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda and Teva Pharmaceuticals. Schneider says the suppliers and pharma sponsors combined represent 22.1 terawatt-hours of electricity demand. One terawatt-hour is equal to the output of one trillion watts for one hour, and is roughly equal to the electricity used by 100,000 US homes over an entire year. |
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by Nicole DeFeudis
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When Paul Hudson took the helm at Sanofi back in 2019, he promised to reinvent the pharma giant — including its Paris headquarters. This week, the company set up shop in new “state-of-the-art” digs. La Maison Sanofi, as the new HQ is called, is officially open for business, Hudson announced on Monday. The 9,000-square-meter (just under 97,000-square-foot) space accommodates 500 employees across the company’s government and global support functions teams, including finance, HR, legal and corporate affairs — and it was built with environmental sustainability and hybrid work in mind. “The opening of La Maison Sanofi is another step toward the modern healthcare company we strive to become,” Hudson said in a news release. “A company open to the world and that seeks to offer its people the best work environment to chase the miracles of science.” Sanofi signed a lease for the new space on Avenue de la Grande Armée back in 2020, just as its old lease on Rue La Boétie expired. The company hired Franklin Azzi Architecture for the renovations, which included merging two previously separate buildings. While a Sanofi spokesperson declined to disclose the cost of the project, they did note that the new lease is less expensive than the previous one. Franklin Azzi said the renovation cost €30 million ($31 million). The revamp is part of Sanofi’s push to modernize its workspaces, which recently included a new 900,000-square-foot facility in Cambridge, MA. The company also renovated its roughly 7-year-old Gentilly campus, close to Paris, to “better welcome up to 3,000 collaborators.” Earlier this year, Hudson also sketched out a $1 billion-plus investment for a new mRNA center in France. |
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Chief Technical Officer
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Creative Director
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Worldwide made. Thanks for reading.
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