Nexium gets its own promotional YouTube channel
pharmafile | July 17, 2013 | News story | Medical Communications | AstraZeneca, Nexium, reflux, youtube
AstraZeneca’s once biggest selling drug Nexium has been given its own YouTube channel in the hope of shoring up sales against generic competition.
Nexium (esomeprazole magnesium), which has licences as an anti-ulcer drug and gastroesophageal reflux disease, now has a promotional advert in YouTube designed to increase sales.
The YouTube channel includes video content to help patients learn more about Nexium and provides information on the savings card for the drug. AstraZeneca also gives weekly tips on how to manage their symptoms, all of which designed for US patients.
Ken Graham, commercial business leader, GI, at AstraZeneca, wrote in the firm’s blog ‘AZ Health Connections’: “In today’s digital age, technology is a compass for how we communicate and share health and wellness information.
“With 72% of adult internet users looking on the internet for health information in the past year, AstraZeneca believes that it is important to share information with patients by engaging with them online.”
The site incorporates a Facebook widget that encourages users to “Share this badge to give a Nexium high five!”, again getting more people across several social media to become aware of the medicine.
The site also comes with full prescription and safety warnings as well as the brand’s distinctive purple colouring, leading to the channel’s ‘Purple Zone’ name.
AZ US has 35 videos uploaded to the video streaming offering, including patient stories on disease AZ caters for, and a promotional patient video for breast cancer drug Arimidex (anastrozole).
Although aimed at US patients (with a disclaimer saying this online), worryingly European users still have direct access to the site with no questions coming up asking whether the viewer is a US resident, which is standard practice on American pharma websites.
This is a direct-to-consumer advert, which is perfectly legal in the US but banned in the EU, leading to questions over whether this breaches compliance issues on the continent.
Nexium sales
Launched in Europe in 2000 and in 2001 in the US, Nexium was AstraZeneca’s biggest brand, bringing in $5 billion in sales in 2010.
But the drug began to go off patent in Europe from 2011, and generic specialist Ranbaxy, among others, have launched copycat versions of Nexium, decimating sales on the continent.
It doesn’t lose its US patent until 2014, but AZ signed a $250m deal with Pfizer in 2012, given the US firm the rights to sell an over-the-counter form of Nexium.
Ben Adams
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