Is that drug ad for me? Peo­ple pay more at­ten­tion to phar­ma DTC for fa­mil­iar con­di­tions, study finds

Drug ads on TV are al­ways telling peo­ple to “ask your doc­tor.” But guess what? Al­most one in five ac­tu­al­ly do bring up a drug they’ve seen in ad­ver­tis­ing dur­ing a med­ical vis­it while one in 10 say they even ask di­rect­ly for the pre­scrip­tion.

That’s ac­cord­ing to a new Deep­In­tent study field­ed as a fol­low-up to an ini­tial deep dive in­to per­cep­tions around phar­ma di­rect-to-con­sumer mar­ket­ing in March. Back then re­searchers at the dig­i­tal health­care mar­ket­ing plat­form found, not sur­pris­ing­ly, peo­ple were see­ing more DTC ad­ver­tis­ing thanks to in­creas­es in dig­i­tal con­sump­tion dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

A lot more in fact. Phar­ma and health­care com­pa­nies’ dig­i­tal ad spend­ing jumped to more than $9.5 bil­lion in 2020, eMar­keter re­ports, and pre­dicts an­oth­er big jump by the end of this year to $11.3 bil­lion, an in­crease of 18%.

Yet at the same time, peo­ple al­so re­port­ed feel­ing less in­formed than ever. While 75% agreed that be­ing in­formed about phar­ma treat­ment op­tions could save lives, more than 30% said they didn’t know enough in­for­ma­tion be­fore they talked to their doc­tors.

One of the goals of Deep­In­tent’s sec­ond study was to fig­ure out what peo­ple are find­ing on­line when they look up a drug and how phar­ma com­pa­nies can bet­ter con­nect the dots be­tween con­sumers and physi­cians.

The num­ber one ap­peal of a drug ad was rel­e­vance. More than half (51%) of the more than 1,200 con­sumers sur­veyed paid more at­ten­tion to drug ads that dis­cuss a health con­di­tion they have, and an­oth­er 33% pay at­ten­tion to ads that talk about a loved one’s con­di­tion. A small­er 15% point­ed to good con­tent as a rea­son they paid at­ten­tion to the ad.

Mar­cel­la Mil­li­et Scior­ra​

“Con­sis­tent with our first re­search, when peo­ple see an ad that’s rel­e­vant to their con­di­tion, they will go on­line and do more re­search about the drug,” Mar­cel­la Mil­li­et Scior­ra​, Deep­In­tent’s se­nior VP of mar­ket­ing said, adding go­ing on­line — and im­por­tant­ly, find­ing the right con­tent, will help peo­ple “have bet­ter ed­u­cat­ed dis­cus­sions with their doc­tor.”

The study al­so took a phar­ma in­dus­try tem­per­a­ture check ask­ing if the pan­dem­ic in­flu­enced opin­ions about it af­ter the rapid Covid-19 vac­cine de­vel­op­ment. An even split said they had a high­er (19%) or low­er (20%) opin­ion of phar­ma, while 47% said their opin­ion didn’t change.

That’s not-so-great news for phar­ma com­pa­nies’ rep­u­ta­tions as they push to build on pub­lic health good­will af­ter the pan­dem­ic.

“COVID be­came such a po­lit­i­cal is­sue, it cloud­ed a lot of the achieve­ments of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try. I’m not sure that’s the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try’s fault, but just the re­al­i­ty we live in to­day,” Scior­ra said.

Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

Mi­rati’s drug sitra­va­tinib flops PhI­II in com­bo with Op­di­vo for cer­tain lung can­cer

Mirati Therapeutics’ path to a second drug approval will likely have to wait. The San Diego biotech company said Wednesday that its investigational lung cancer drug failed a Phase III trial testing it in combination with Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo.

The drug, sitravatinib, and Opdivo weren’t better than the chemo drug docetaxel at keeping patients alive, Mirati said in a press release. The spectrum-selective kinase inhibitor missed the primary goal of overall survival in patients with second- or third-line advanced non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer.

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End­points 20(+2) un­der 40, 2023; Bio­phar­ma's high­est-paid CEOs; N-of-1 CRISPR sto­ry goes on af­ter tragedy; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

We will be off Monday in observance of Memorial Day — and when we get back, it will be a straight march to ASCO, BIO and more. Enjoy the (long) weekend!

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Rich Horgan (R) with his late brother, Terry

Rich Hor­gan spear­head­ed a gene ther­a­py for his broth­er. The tri­al end­ed in tragedy, but the work con­tin­ues for more pa­tients

Rich Horgan’s quest to create a custom gene therapy for his brother, Terry, ended in tragedy. But Horgan doesn’t believe it’s the end of the story.

Terry, a 27-year-old patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, died last October just eight days after receiving the therapy in a clinical trial in which he was the only participant. The case raised questions about the safety of certain gene therapies and what would happen to other drug programs under a nonprofit that Horgan created, called Cure Rare Disease.

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Bio­phar­ma's 20 high­est-paid CEOs of 2022, each bring­ing in $20M+ pay­days

Even in a down year for much of the biopharma market, 20 CEOs brought in pay packages valued at more than $20 million, an Endpoints News analysis found.

Endpoints collected data on more than 350 CEO compensation packages, covering a wide range of pharma, biotech, and life sciences companies. All told, the 20 largest earners made over $725 million in 2022 — an average package of $36.4 million. Three brought in paydays over $50 million, and one CEO broke the $100 million mark.

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Pictured are three men new to the latest Biktarvy campaign alongside two of the original women. (Gilead Sciences)

Gilead adds more pa­tient rep­re­sen­ta­tion in next phase of HIV med Bik­tarvy cam­paign

Gilead Sciences is expanding its real patient roster in the newest Biktarvy ad campaign, adding seven people to the original group of six.

The evolution of the “Keep Being You” campaign for the HIV medicine also includes a new red label appearing alongside each person, noting their name and that they are “undetectable on Biktarvy.”

The campaign first debuted in 2020, with the newest effort resulting from several different tests around how to keep moving the campaign forward, said Nik Johnson, Gilead senior director, HIV marketing.

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FDA ap­proves Lex­i­con’s heart-fail­ure drug af­ter de­feat in di­a­betes

The FDA on Friday approved Lexicon’s heart failure drug sotagliflozin following a string of setbacks for the pharma company, including an FDA rejection in diabetes and the loss of a development deal with Sanofi.

The dual SGLT1 and SGLT2 inhibitor will be marketed as Inpefa and is a once-daily tablet. It’s been approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and heart failure-related hospitalization or urgent visits in adults with heart failure or type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, and other cardiovascular risk factors. The label spans the range of left ventricular ejection fraction, including preserved ejection fraction and reduced ejection fraction, as well as patients with or without diabetes, Lexicon said Friday.

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The 20(+2) un­der 40: Your guide to the next gen­er­a­tion of biotech lead­ers

This year’s list of 20 biotech leaders under the age of 40 includes a huge range of ambitions. Some of our honorees are planning to create the next big drug giant. Others are pushing the bounds of AI. One is working to revolutionize TB testing. All are compelling talents who are still young in age, but already far along in achievement.

And, as in years past, we went over. The 20 are actually 22 because of two double profiles that reflect how important teamwork is in the industry. As one of our honorees, Joe Illingworth of DJS Antibodies, told me in our interview, “It takes a village to raise a biotech.”

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Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion to re­ceive few­er Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech vac­cine dos­es un­der amend­ed con­tract

The European Commission has made a few changes to its vaccine contract with Pfizer and BioNTech, reducing the dose volume while extending the delivery timeline to cope with “evolving public health needs.”

The Commission previously struck a contract in May 2021 for 900 million doses, with the option to purchase another 900 million. Of those, 450 million were expected to be delivered in 2023, though an amendment now calls for fewer doses. While neither the Commission nor Pfizer and BioNTech have revealed an exact amount, an unnamed source told Reuters that the amendment reduces the remaining expected doses by about a third.

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