P&G sponsors ulcerative colitis DVD
pharmafile | March 6, 2009 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â GI, digiÂ
Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals is sponsoring and distributing a new educational DVD that aims to explain ulcerative colitis (UC) to sufferers.
The DVD will be made available to gastroenterologists and inflammatory bowel disease nurses via the company's sales representatives.
Designed for people who have just been diagnosed, Knowing About … Ulcerative Colitis is presented by GMTV doctor Hilary Jones.
It offers information on the disease, diagnosis and treatment in what the company calls "simple, patient-friendly, everyday language".
"Patients are often in shock when they hear that they have a life-long condition like ulcerative colitis," said Helen Terry, National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease (NACC)'s director of information and support.
"They find it very difficult to take in what is being said to them by their doctor. This is totally understandable, but we also know that informed patients often have better treatment outcomes."
Part of P&G's "Innovations in IBD" education programme, the DVD should enable patients to learn about their condition and how to manage it, as and when they are ready, Terry added.
The NACC, which raises funds for research as well as offering support for sufferers and their families, is also making the DVD available directly to patients from its 70 regional groups.
It is produced by Bristol-based Bodytalk Programmes, which has made similar medical education programmes for several pharma companies.
Media relations for the programme are being handled by PR agency Resolute Communications.
Ulcerative colitis
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a disease of the large bowel and rectum which causes ulcers to develop and the lining of the bowel to become inflamed.
Active disease symptoms may include pain, frequent and urgent need to go to the toilet and bloody diarrhoea.
It affects up to 120,000 people in the UK and between 6,000 and 12,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
It is thought that as many as 2.2 million people in Europe suffer from all types of inflammatory bowel disease.
Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals (P&G) markets Asacol, one of the leading UC treatments, a 5-aminosalicylate (5-ASA) treatment which needs to be taken two or three times a day. Rivals include Teva/Schering-Plough UK's Mesren.
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