As Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca’s metastatic breast cancer drug Enhertu picks up more label expansions, the companies are targeting patients directly for the first time in messaging efforts.
Daiichi Sankyo has launched a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) campaign for Enhertu — the first DTC effort for its oncology unit as a whole — to educate patients about the drug’s expanded uses.
The “Not Today” campaign consists of a 90-second ad that aired on Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football this week. Shot entirely in black and white, the ad features day-to-day moments for cancer patients — some happy and others more melancholy.
“I have metastatic breast cancer, and I pretend that I’m fine,” the narrator states in the video. “But I’m tricking my cancer. I’m yanking back more moments, memories, with Enhertu.”
The TV spot is emblematic of Daiichi Sankyo’s efforts to raise awareness about Enhertu beyond HCPs as the company seeks to expand its labels further, according to Dan Switzer, head of U.S. oncology business at Daiichi Sankyo.
“For us, it represents a new phase in the life cycle of the medicine,” Switzer said. “We want to make sure that patients and their caregivers know about Enhertu, and know it can be potentially a life-saving drug for them. Because of the expansion of utilization, now is the right time for us to embark on this DTC [journey].”
The campaign draws on insights from patients living with metastatic breast cancer, who commonly referred to feeling as though they had to put up a front for family and friends to pretend they were doing fine. The campaign aims to provide a different perspective than traditional pharma ads featuring happy moments, Switzer said.
“What we heard from patients when we showed them the ad is that they felt heard, and some of them told us it gave them permission to not be okay from time to time,” he added.
The choice to launch the ad on Thursday Night Football was driven by Daiichi Sankyo’s efforts to reach caregivers as well as friends and loved ones of metastatic breast cancer patients. But the ultimate goal is to arm patients with more information about treatment options.
“The treatment decisions are often co-owned between the oncologist and the patient,” Switzer explained. “That’s a huge benefit to being able to do DTC — to make sure that patients are as informed as they possibly can be.”
DTC will likely become part of Daiichi Sankyo’s broader strategy for its overall oncology unit, Switzer said. The “Not Today” ad will also be running across other streaming and social media platforms, including Hulu, Instagram, Meta and X.
In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Enhertu accelerated approval for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive solid tumors in patients who were previously treated. The move represented the fifth approved indication for the drug.
More recent clinical data readout has also pointed toward further expansion of its labels. AstraZeneca unveiled new data in June that showed Enhertu resulted in a 38% reduction in disease progression or death compared to chemotherapy in patients with HR-positive, HER2-low metastatic breast cancer.
According to Switzer, the latest data suggests that Enhertu’s clinical program has the potential to expand to the point in which up to nine out of 10 metastatic breast cancer patients could eventually be eligible for Enhertu.
Enhertu brought in $2.57 billion in combined sales for both AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo in 2023, doubling from the $1.25 billion in 2022.
But that growth appears to have slowed a bit in 2024, with Enhertu drawing in $893 million in combined sales in the second quarter of the year — a 1.6% increase from the first quarter.
