Novartis launches Facebook ‘retina app’
pharmafile | October 15, 2013 | News story | Medical Communications | AMD, Bayer, Lucentis, Novartis, set your sights
Novartis, the world’s biggest eye-care drugmaker, has launched a new Facebook retina app to raise awareness of retinal disease.
The app is designed to show the effects of retinal disease by displaying a realistic view of what the impact of vision-loss has on viewers’ daily life.
A part of an online ‘Set Your Sights’ campaign, the app will be launched alongside dedicated social media communities, allowing people with low-vision conditions along with wider audiences to further engage and build a ‘community of support’.
Novartis says that this campaign has been mounted in response to the World Health Organization’s 2020 Vision Report, which says that nearly 80% of global blindness is preventable if managed correctly.
WHO also encourages people to directly engage with vision-loss and experience what it means to live with a sight-diminishing condition. The Set Your Sights campaign is the latest addition to the Novartis portfolio to address the medical needs of people living with conditions affecting their sight.
In 2010 Novartis bought eye-care specialist Alcon in a $13 billion deal and also markets Lucentis, a blockbuster drug licensed for wet AMD, the leading cause of blindness in the world. It also has a number of licenses for other eye conditions, all of which are effects of retinal disease.
This latest campaign implicitly plugs awareness of drugs such as Lucentis for the disease, and though the firm is not allowed to sell it directly to consumers in Europe, the secondary purpose for this app (and the broader Set Yours Sights campaign) is to help increase sales of Lucentis, which has come under threat from new drugs such as Bayer/Regeneron’s Eylea.
“As the global leader in the field of retinal disease, Novartis is proud to support World Sight Day by creating further dialogue among people living with low vision conditions and the wider community, generating an environment of understanding and tolerance,” said David Epstein, head of the pharmaceuticals division at Novartis.
The campaign launched with a Facebook application (the retina app) on World Sight Day on 10 October. It is being supported with social conversations on Facebook and Twitter.
Ben Adams
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