People with unmet medical needs are frequently driven to seek access to drugs outside the commercial setting. This campaign aimed to raise awareness of the benefits of an Idis Managed Access Program (MAP) amongst a global audience of pharmaceutical executives, physicians and pharmacists.

This diverse mix of people approach the problem of unavailable medicines from very different positions. The pharmaceutical executives need to ensure they can effectively manage requests from physicians, pharmacists and patients for access to drugs that they have not yet brought to market or are looking to discontinue.

The physicians and pharmacists need a way of giving their patients another chance when they’ve run out of currently available treatment options or when they’re experiencing disruptions to established drug supplies.

In all cases they are busy people who are used to seeing dry messages about such services, which rarely explore the very human aspect of providing a patient in need with life-saving medicine.

Since Idis provide a service, rather than RX, we were only limited by individual guidelines on pharmaceutical company advertising within the media channels.

For Dr Yang Qingming, there’s nothing worse than feeling powerless to help. This was the situation he was facing with his patient Jin, who had experienced numerous periods of remission followed by a return of her lymphoma. Finally he ran out of treatment options. Jin’s mother had read an article about a new drug for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Yang confirmed that it would be a good option. Unfortunately, it was only approved in the US and Jin would need to be in America to access it, but she was too weak to travel. So started a chain of events that led Yang and the family through discussions with contacts in the US, Germany, the UK, and eventually to Idis. Within days of completing their paperwork, the first course of treatment had arrived. After just one week Jin’s fever was gone, she had stopped coughing, and the pain had eased. It was a tremendous change and it surprised everyone, not least of all her mother, who had started to fear that she would lose her daughter. Jin is now in complete remission, and Yang has found more doctors and patients coming to him looking for answers.

Challenge

Every day, thousands of people are driven to seek access to medicines outside the normal commercial routes. Idis answers that need with their Managed Access Programs (MAPs). But awareness of these programs was low, so Idis wanted to get the message out about how they help people with unmet medical needs.

Objective

Increase business development contacts to Idis by 20%, equating to $2.5M, between July 2013 and September 2013.

Strategy

Communicate the impact Idis MAPs have on people’s lives through a series of documentary films, shot in an authentic style, on location, without scripts. Use social and online media to drive conversation and website visits.

Execution

The films are delivered through a responsive website, optimised for desktop, iPad and iPhone. The simplicity of design and intuitive navigation immerses the user in a journey that allows them to explore the different stories. The entire experience is intended to present a ‘soft’ call to action to find out more about Idis MAPs without detracting from the integrity of the stories.

Outcome

In the first 3 months:

30,000 website visits

450 hours of video watched

800,000 LinkedIn targets reached

40,000 Twitter interactions

New Business Leads worth $5M through the website