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Hear directly from patients: Insights from Phreesia Life Sciences
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Did you know only 8% of patients have ever used a patient support program? Or that 40% of caregivers don’t feel equipped with enough resources to provide optimal care? Through surveys and expert commentary, Phreesia Life Sciences delivers essential insights on patient centricity and more industry topics. From healthcare consumerism to explorations of patient experiences with asthma, migraine and other conditions, get the latest insights now in our reports and infographics. |
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Living in a new house where the previous owners were dedicated gardeners, we are in awe of the greenery, blooms and wildlife outside our windows these days. Except for, true story, that one weird squirrel that comes by occasionally to stare in and scratch at the window. But we never know when — which may be how pharma PR people feel these days with almost 8 in 10 anticipating more than three crises this year. Read about it in my feature below, along with the latest in pharma marketing news. |
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Beth Snyder Bulik |
Senior Editor, Endpoints News
@BethSBulik
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Welcome to pharma public relations where every day feels like it might be a crisis. More than three-fourths (76%) of pharma communications leaders expect to face three or more crises this year — compared to less than half (49%) of their peers in other industries, according to new survey from risk intelligence company Crisp. The same 76% also expect that a brand new risk that is yet to be identified will crop up this year, compared to 66% of peers across other industries who worry about the same thing. They might not be wrong. A litany of health crises jumpstarted by the pandemic has spun out into an almost daily drone of industry, brand and pharma company issues. Pharmas seemed doomed from the beginning, starting with the not-even-vaccine-related Biogen “superspreader” meeting with 100 global executives in February 2020 that eventually caused as many as 330,000 Covid cases. Of course, many of the ensuing waves of minor and major crises have often been Covid-19 vaccine- and treatment-related — repurposed drugs that worked for a while and those that didn’t at all, vaccine side effects such as rare blood clots and fevers that were real and rumors of things such as altered DNA that were absolutely not, along with contamination at manufacturing plants and vaccine shortage crises. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the volumes of completely fabricated accusations that traversed into the ridiculous. Could anyone have imagined the CEO of Pfizer at the center of wildly incorrect, but widespread rumors about being arrested or his wife dying after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine? |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Hologic is adding another effort from Grammy-winning musician Sheryl Crow, who's also a breast cancer survivor, to its most recent marketing efforts. Crow, a long-time Hologic spokesperson, is speaking out to encourage women to schedule annual mammograms. Crow paired with radiologist Arlene Richardson to talk about the importance of health screenings. The social media effort is built on insights from a recent study commissioned by Hologic that found that only 59% of people who responded were up-to-date. Meanwhile, the top source of information about mammograms? Mom first, followed by their primary care physician. | Horizon extends thyroid eye disease awareness campaign with Olympic track star and a letter-writing effort | Three-time Olympic medal winner Gail Devers also lives with Graves’ disease, and has been a spokesperson for Horizon for more than a year. Now she’s taking part in its latest campaign focused on mental health for people living with thyroid eye disease (TED). Called “Dear TED,” the effort encourages people living with the condition to write a letter about how it has affected their life – and about how they’re taking back control of their physical and mental health. Health expert and author Lori Gottlieb, who is working with Horizon on the effort, said writing a letter is a healthy way to express emotions as well as a good way to share experiences and feel less alone. Devers’ heartfelt and emotional videotaped letter starts out: “Dear TED, you’ve been my unwanted houseguest for 30 years and now, you’ve gotta go. We both know you’ve constantly interrupted my life and for a long time made me unrecognizable to myself.” |
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Dad gets a side hug from his tween daughter in Merck's latest campaign to promote HPV vaccinations. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Awkward side hugs and riding in the back of the "dad cab" are typical adolescent rites of passage. But it’s also around the same time that parents overseeing the pre-teen years should be thinking about HPV vaccinations for their kids. Merck’s latest HPV vaccine awareness campaign showcases those parent-tween moments in a new TV commercial. The message is delivered by a mom who says, as she gets a surprise full-on hug, “Embrace this phase, help protect them in the next. Ask their doctor about HPV vaccination today.” While Merck has been promoting the importance of HPV vaccines in various campaigns for more than 15 years, the latest effort takes a softer approach. The campaign directly before this was a harder-hitting “Not My Child” effort with TV ads where parents stepped in front of their tweenagers, looking at the camera and told HPV cancer "You're not welcome here." The tough-talking parents followed up on Merck’s 2016-launched campaign featuring young people with HPV-related cancers aging backward and poignantly asking their parents “Did you know?” about the vaccine that could have prevented their cancer. “Not My Child” resonated with parents, and won several awards, Cheryl Donnelly, Merck associate VP for US marketing in vaccines, said. However, Merck market research showed that the directness of the ads needed to be softened after two years of a lot of parental stress during the pandemic. |
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Former NSYNC member Lance Bass is Amgen's new psoriatic arthritis spokesperson. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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NSYNC boy band member Lance Bass didn’t realize his aches and pains weren’t just a byproduct of a busy lifestyle, many years of dancing and of course, aging. Instead, it was psoriatic arthritis. Now Bass is partnering with Amgen and its anti-inflammatory brand Otezla to help others recognize the signs of psoriatic arthritis. The singer and dancer, whose career began as one of the five boys of NSYNC with popular hit songs and coordinated dance move videos such as “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me,” is translating those moves to a short TikTok-style “Double Take” dance. The educational dance highlights “head, heels, knees and nails” because skin and joint issues in those places potentially relate to psoriatic arthritis. Bass says in the introduction that he created “the very boy band-like line dance” to help others do a double take on what some symptoms might mean and encourage them to reach out to a healthcare provider. The corresponding original song includes lyrics that say: “If you see the signs, don’t wait, let’s go.” "One of the things we've learned over the years is that patients with a diagnosis like Lance has, it can take them 8 to 10 years to get a diagnosis or before they see a rheumatologist because no one puts it together," said Alvin Wells who is director of rheumatology at Advocate Aurora Medical Group and helping Amgen and Bass promote the need for early diagnosis. |
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An outdoor mural of a hand with gout uric acid crystals is part of Horizon's latest campaign to raise gout awareness and erase stigma. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis, but not many people make the connection. That’s why Horizon Therapeutics is partnering with the Arthritis Foundation in a new campaign that includes outdoor murals in cities across the US. In each of the four artworks, the uric acid crystals that build up inside the body with gout are shown as bright green crystals on hands, feet or spine. The murals include Horizon’s campaign website uncovergout.com where people can see a behind-the-scenes video about the condition and the making of the images, along with more information and patients’ stories about the stigma and misconceptions around gout. “Gout is a systemic disease but often misunderstood. So this is a creative way to get the word out and ask patients who are suffering from gout to take a closer look,” Eric Foster, group VP and general manager of Horizon’s gout business unit. The murals in downtown areas of Charlotte, Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta were planned and drawn for May which is Arthritis Awareness month and also in advance of Gout Awareness Day in two weeks. Horizon commissioned a New York mural artist to create the images and then hired local artists in each city to recreate them. Horizon chose outdoor marketing in part to get closer to communities where gout is more prevalent. That is the case for the four cities selected, but each also has specialty physician resources patients could look up after seeing the ads. |
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AstraZeneca's first DTC for its lupus med Saphnelo literally highlights the individual nature of the disease's symptoms. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Lupus isn’t fair — and AstraZeneca’s debut direct-to-consumer ad campaign for Saphnelo wants to let patients know that it understands. And that it’s here to disrupt the status quo. Saphnelo, approved in August, is the first new med for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in more than 10 years. Its type I interferon differs from its lupus market-established competitor GlaxoSmithKline’s Benlysta, a B-cell activating factor inhibitor first approved in 2011. The Saphnelo campaign “Here for More” focuses on women’s individual and “deeply personal relationship with their lupus,” Krista Socha, AstraZeneca’s executive marketing director for immunology. “The campaign authentically represents these patients who are living with this very personal illness of SLE,” she said, adding it aims to “educate and encourage them to expect more from their treatment.” SLE is the most common form of lupus and affects more than 300,000 people in the US, mostly women of childbearing age and disproportionately affects women of Black, Hispanic and Asian descent. Lupus is broadly symptomatic across potentially 9 different organ systems meaning each individual can present differently — or as Socha said, “If you’ve seen one patient with lupus, you’ve seen one patient.” The digitally-focused campaign includes online video display and social media with a plan that will reach 95% of the lupus patient population this year. The digital and social plan is purposeful because many lupus patients who are often younger women are active on social media as self-advocates and are eager to connect with other patients, Socha said. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Roche laid out its ambitions in the social part of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy on Monday centered on access to its drugs and diagnostics. The Roche inaugural Access to Healthcare investor call follows a general pharma industry trend in ESG. More companies are publishing reports and holding calls to outline climate, societal, diversity, and even pricing goals as investors clamor for details amid surging interest in ESG commitments. RBC Capital Markets predicted last year that the pharma sector is poised to raise its historically poor ratings in the booming ESG investment market – now more than $820 million in assets under management. Covid pandemic reputation gains, along with declining litigation, improving drug pricing accountability and more management involvement in ESG issues could contribute to a positive change, RBC said in a report. On Monday, Roche executives outlined its targets – in some cases reiterating or updating them – while also pointing out what it has accomplished when it comes to access across its meds and diagnostics. That starts with innovation across all patient populations, Bruno Eschli, Roche’s head of investor relations, said. “Access is not a topic specific to just one geography, but rather every country whether low-income or high-income country faces its own special challenges,” he said. For upper-middle and high income countries, for instance, increasing health costs, healthcare procedure backlogs and a lack of healthcare workers are concerns Roche is trying to address, while in low-middle income countries it faces challenges such as a lack of healthcare infrastructure, low awareness and diagnoses rates, and general economic pressures. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Scynexis is rolling out a new campaign for its Brexafemme yeast infection treatment, but the effort is more than just advertising. As CEO Marco Taglietti said in wrapping his prepared comments during an earnings call on Thursday, “Let me finish with our new rallying cry — yeast infection, say no more.” That headline — written as “Yeast infection? Say no more” — appears on Scynexis’ recently launched ad campaign to healthcare providers and will begin rolling out to consumers later this month. Chief commercial officer Christine Coyne explained the rallying cry is meant for patients “who have been suffering from yeast infections and trying the same thing.” The same things mean over-the-counter treatments and long-approved oral Pfizer’s fluconazole. The digital and social media campaign includes changes to Scynexis’ initial Brexafemme promotional material language “to be more powerful and more robust,” Coyne said. “Our new patient materials are much more about empowerment which resonates with our target audiences.” The “Say No More” debut campaign with healthcare providers in April uses “relatable and iconic imagery paired with new data and messaging” to drive home that same message to doctors. The campaign included a media tour and coverage on 25 radio and TV stations last week with two Brexafemme spokespeople, Scynexis’ clinical development leader Nkechi Azie and women’s health advocate Barbara Dehn, a nurse practitioner better known as Nurse Barb. The media tour drove viewers and listeners to www.YourVHealth.com which redirects to Brexafemme’s home page. |
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by Beth Snyder Bulik
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Sharks lurking under the skin and grimacing impetigo lesions are the striking images topping BioFrontera’s new and revamped websites for its flagship brands Ameluz and Xepi, respectively. The skin specialist biopharma’s Ameluz site is its first aimed at patients while the Xepi revamp expands information and resources for both patients and physicians in the now one-stop site. Ameluz is a gel used in photodynamic therapy along with a specialized lamp to treat actinic keratosis (AK) lesions on the face and scalp. AK, also called solar keratosis, is a type of pre-cancer that if untreated can develop into squamous cell carcinoma. The shark-shaped protrusions appear on the scalp of a man who also has lesions on the new Ameluz page under the headline “When danger lurks below the surface.” Meanwhile, the new page for Xepi, an anti-bacterial topical cream to treat impetigo in adults and children, is topped with an image of a little boy's face and three anthropomorphized lesions with yellow faces grimacing as a manicured finger nears with lotion. The tagline under the image reads: "It's what resistant bacteria fear most." Along with the new digital marketing, BioFrontera is amping up its sales force, CEO Erica Monaco said in its first-quarter earnings call on Friday. It recently created a dedicated key accounts sales team that aims to boost BioFrontera across a range of dermatology clinics “from institutional accounts to regional organizations,” she said. |
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John Carroll
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Editor & Founder
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Arsalan Arif
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Publisher & Founder
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Shehla Shakoor
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Managing Director
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Igor Yavych
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Chief Technical Officer
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Chip Staton
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Chief Finance Officer
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Valentin Manov
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Creative Director
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Beth Snyder Bulik
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Senior Editor
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Zachary Brennan
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Senior Editor
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Josh Sullivan
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Associate Editor
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Kathy Wong
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Assistant Editor
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Melissa Nazzaro
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Sales Director
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Cassidy Murphy
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Sales Associate
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Jaime Bruder
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Sr. Operations Manager
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Kara Thibault
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Operations Manager
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Jordan Collins
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Operations
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Lirra Selibio
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Subscriptions
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Dawn Cleveland
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Controller
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Amanda Florez
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Executive Assistant
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Alex Lefterov
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Graphic Designer
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DeAna Catoni
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Operations Coordinator
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Kari Abitbol
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Director, Studio
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Julie Notario
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Sales Director
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Paul Schloesser
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Associate Editor
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Derek Graf
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Copy/Visuals Editor
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Andrii Tomchyshyn
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Lead Developer
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Clara Bui
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Virtual Producer
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Kristin Bartolo
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Director, Administration
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Kyle LaHucik
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Associate Editor
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Margarita Cabrera
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Sales Coordinator
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Tyler Patchen
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News Reporter
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Delaney Miller
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Operations Coordinator
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Worldwide made. Thanks for reading.
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