What can a pharmaceutical brand do more beyond medicine for solitude patients suffering from a rare disease? Starting from that thought, this project prescribes them new experiences of joy, hope and togetherness in life, in a new way of using music.

PAH (Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension) is a fatal rare disease that causes patients to feel short of breath, even when walking. Also, due to being a rare disease, PAH patients cannot find other patients who can truly resonate with what they are going through or gain the understanding of the people around them, and as a result are often dealing with their condition and emotions all alone.

Whilst PAH can’t be cured, it can be treated. To optimize treatment, the patient's condition should be monitored regularly through the ‘6-minute walk test’ which is suffocating and reminds patients of their desperate aloneness. That’s why some patients even refuse to take the test, the 6 minutes.

Use the power of music to bring solitude patients back again to togetherness, pleasures, and hopes in life.

The '6 Minutes Together' is an original music playlist on Spotify designed together with a PAH specialist which consists of exact 6-minute long songs, to turn 6 minutes of aloneness into 6 minutes of togetherness.

40 songs with lyrics inspiring patients were selected out of a vast list around the world. Beats Per Minute of each song was approved by a PAH specialist to comply with patients’ walking speed practically. The specialist also provided a 6-minute audio of medical tips.

The highlight of the playlist was an original song directly written for PAH patients by one of Japan’s most popular artists, Yo Hitoto.

The ‘6 Minutes Together’ sheds light on the potential of music, as a new prescription for patients’ lives.

The primary target audience are PAH patients who have faced many difficulties in finding hope in their lives, while suffering all alone from their fatal destiny every day.

The secondary target audience is society overall including PAH potential patients. As PAH is a disease with low awareness, it takes approximately 3 and a half years until a patient could be diagnosed. It was common for patients to be diagnosed after the disease had progressed significantly.

By making the most use of giant music platform media, Spotify, the project was designed to generate a positive outlook in life among existing patients, while raising social awareness of the disease among potential patients.

On April 22 of 2021, Spotify’s new playlist of '6 Minutes Together' was published at the same time as releasing its original song '6 Minutes'.

On May 27 of 2021, Its online spin-off event ’60 Minutes Together’ was held in a metaverse platform, Cluster where patients, doctors, music fans and Yo Hitoto gathered all together to enjoy the playlist while learning the disease.

On December 17 of 2021, Yo Hitoto's special live concert was held on YouTube Live, escalating further awareness of the disease.

Between March 25 and April 7 this year, its cinema ads were aired in 66 theaters nationwide before a film featuring a PAH patient started, and also on April 17 its online public lecture was held.

The '6 Minutes Together' project continues to expand from a playlist on Spotify to a variety of activities until PAH disease becomes a thing of the past.

The project was covered by more than 80 media, gaining 118M media impressions within 1 week after its launch.

The playlist was played more than 25,000 times while reaching more than 9M impressions in total on Spotify in 2021.

Plenty of patient advocacy groups have started to use Yo Hitoto's song "6 Minutes" as their engaged song.

Social media posts related to PAH increased by 220% compared to 3 months before the launch of the project.

1500 potential patients were detected with early disease in 2021. This is a meaningful achievement considering the total patient population of 3900.

81.3% of key opinion leaders in PAH treatment responded favorably to this project, as a result Janssen’s annual sales share in its treatment increased to 56%, exceeding the initial target of 52%.

Most importantly, it continues to remind patients that they are not alone.

Japanese pharmaceutical law doesn’t allow us to promise or appeal any direct efficacies of medical treatments in communications. It also regulates that every Disease Awareness Communication appearing in the society must be implemented unbranded.

The primary audience are PAH patients suffering from desperate aloneness in life brought by the fatal rare disease. The project was designed to generate a positive outlook in life among the existing patients while raising social awareness of the disease among its secondary audience, potential patients.