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Dudnyk

Performance

Revenue increased from $10.8 million to $14.5 million

Plans

“While it won’t be another 30%-plus year, we are due to launch three products and we have strong disease-education ­initiatives with three of our clients”  
— Christopher Tobias

Prediction

“Patients will continue to seek information, educate themselves, and drive treatment decisions. Eventually, we will see true promotion taking place in a social venue” 
— Christopher Tobias


For some time, Dudnyk has gone about business in the belief that the traditional silo walls between professional and consumer interests are unnecessary obstacles holding back both healthcare outcomes and brand performance. The agency has now formalized its philosophy as the Unifying Effect and is shouting it from the rooftops.

“It’s our mission to show what you can gain from having an appreciation and understanding of how the two audiences communicate, of bringing it down to the common denominator of being human,” says company president Christopher Tobias.

Christopher Tobias

president: Christopher Tobias

Dudnyk has good reason to feel bullish about its odds of disrupting the status quo. Revenue in 2016 rose to $14.5 million, up from $10.8 million in 2015, thanks to a mix of organic growth and new business.

On the client front, Dudnyk was awarded two more products from Shire’s HAE franchise, adding Kalbitor and Firazyr to existing brand Cinryze, for which it has been both HCP and patient AOR since 2009. Shire further expanded the relationship by awarding Dudnyk portfolio identity development and promotion work for the HAE franchise.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals handed the agency a third oncology product in development, which joins existing work on Erwinaze and Defitelio, which Dudnyk launched in 2016. The new product is expected to be approved this year as the first new treatment for AML in nearly two decades. And for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, it won the HCP and patient AOR business for a first-in-class treatment currently in development for hereditary ATTR Amyloidosis.

Elsewhere, Dudnyk picked up two more products in development at Sun Ophthalmics, for which it launched Bromsite as the first ocular NSAID for prevention of pain after ocular surgery. The agency has also been busy with a number of disease­education initiatives for Sunovion, Flexion, and Alnylam.

Indeed, it is the notion of the empowered patient that forms the backbone of the Unifying Effect. “Patients are taking a greater role in the decision-making process and education is central to their care, especially in the rare-disease space,” says EVP and creative director Laurie Bartolomeo. “Often the patient is the one who is educating the physician, or even bringing treatments to the physician, so we have to be able to speak to both.” EVP and chief strategy officer Drew Desjardins believes a key component of this approach is to create a greater empathy for patients who have these rare diseases. 

“When physicians understand the burden, it’s almost as though you are switching on a light,” Desjardins says. “You can see the difference in the way that they interact with their patients and ultimately in the way they choose therapies to help their patients live better lives.”

As Dudnyk continues to grow, Tobias stresses the importance of maintaining its values and core beliefs: Namely, to do your best, honor your word, keep learning, believe in others, and never give up. “That is truly what each of us embodies and what we live, breathe, and try to emulate every day,” he says. “And that is what we look for in our talent in every department and at every level.”