THE Swiss drug maker Novartis is taking a sassy new tack to win converts to its oral multiple sclerosis treatment, Gilenya. Its "Hey MS, Take This!" campaign shows patients sticking out their tongues with Gilenya capsules on them to show their willingness to fight back against the neurological condition.
The campaign, which begins this week, is aimed at younger people with multiple sclerosis, a chronic autoimmune disease with symptoms like fatigue, difficulty in walking and blurred or double vision. The campaign will be in national print outlets, including a half-dozen national magazines like People, Shape and Self, and on the Web sites of women's magazine. A television-style online video will also be available on social media outlets.
"MS strikes in the prime of life, and many patients use the Web and social media to connect," said Dagmar Rosa-Bjorkeson, head of Novartis's multiple sclerosis unit. "Many are now being diagnosed in their 20s and 30s, and early treatment makes the most impact, so we are trying to target those people who are active and digitally savvy."
The campaign's upbeat tone comes, Ms. Rosa-Bjorkeson said, from sentiments patients expressed on blogs and other forms of social media where "people were saying that 'this disease is not going to stop me.' "
"Those were spirited words, with an edginess and power to them that wound up giving the campaign a bolder tone," she said.
Novartis is trying to set the Gilenya campaign apart from other pharmaceutical advertising.
All such ads must conform to federal regulatory strictures that consumers receive balanced information that not only includes the drug's effectiveness but also enumerates its risks in consumer-friendly language.
"Since it was approved in 1997, direct contact advertising with consumers has led to a fairly conservative pharma culture," said Bill Daddi, president of Daddi Brand Communications. "It sometimes leads to people looking at the ads to ask, 'What's worse, the symptoms or the cure?' "
"But it also encourages people to speak up about their symptoms, which they didn't always do before," he said.
Gilenya is in an increasingly crowded treatment market. It is one of three oral therapies that have been approved recently to treat multiple sclerosis, a condition thought to occur when the body's immune system attacks its nerve fiber insulation.
The Novartis drug is aimed at the most prevalent form of multiple sclerosis, called relapsing, in which the condition can flare up and intensify impairment of neurological function. Novartis says one daily dose of Gilenya helps slow the advance of physical problems that can be brought on by the disease, including shrinkage of the brain.
The new oral pharmaceuticals and other drugs approved in recent years are transforming the treatment of multiple sclerosis, which affects an estimated 400,000 people in the United States and more than two million people worldwide, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. It is commonly treated with drug injections or infusions.
Since its approval by the Food and Drug Administration in September 2010, Gilenya has been used by 28,000 multiple sclerosis patients in the United States. Last year its sales reached $1.2 billion. It competes with products from Bayer, Biogen Idec and Teva in the nearly $9 billion annual market in the United States.
Novartis did not disclose its spending on the Gilenya campaign. But last year, its pharmaceutical ad spending was $95.3 million, according to figures from Kantar Media, a unit of WPP, down from $116.6 million in 2011.
Two-thirds of those with multiple sclerosis are women, and many receive the diagnosis between ages 25 and 44, according to Ms. Rosa-Bjorkeson. A majority of patients use blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to find information and to connect with fellow sufferers, she said.
The company is using some real patient stories, gleaned from about a dozen patients, on its Web site, gilenya.com, and in brochures and other marketing materials, she said. It plans to add to this as the campaign reaches more people with multiple sclerosis, she said.
"It's all about attitude," explained Mike Devlin, creative director of the campaign's ad agency, Draftfcb, part of the Interpublic Group, which interviewed the multiple sclerosis patients. "There were a lot of nuggets that reflected their voice and attitude, and an outpouring about the impact Gilenya had on their lives." A 60-second commercial and print ads, he said, "are designed to get people thinking about their treatment choices."
Featuring real patients "is a contemporary way to get patients to recognize their symptoms and to be more in control," said Jeff Rothstein, a partner at Cult Health, a Cult360 ad agency. "But pharma ads have to tread a fine line so they are not seen as promoting the idea that patients should just ask the doctor to write a prescription for the drug."
This is the first broad marketing campaign for Gilenya, which Novartis licensed in 1997 from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma and tested in clinical trials. The company says trials have shown the drug to be more effective than interferon treatments, but serious side effects include elevated liver enzymes, headaches, diarrhea and back pain.
Shortly after Gilenya entered the market, Novartis conducted a smaller marketing effort, with ads in magazines aimed at those with multiple sclerosis as well as a limited placement in national magazines.
Its new campaign emphasizes empowered young patients, who use phrases like "No needles for me" and "Take this, you bully" to show their defiant attitude as they cope with the disease.
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