Golf legend and prostate cancer survivor Arnold Palmer is the celebrity face of a new educational website and program developed by Centocor Ortho Biotech and Us TOO, a nonprofit prostate cancer support organization.
Located at MyProstateCancerRoadmap.com, the website —targeted at men with advanced prostate cancer and their caregivers—provides information around topic areas like work, relationships, sex and intimacy, and high-risk populations. In the resources section, the site offers links to nonprofit and advocacy organizations, downloadable questions about nutrition and exercise to be asked in the doctor’s office, and other tips.
The site is unbranded and “excludes marketing of any kind,” in keeping with Us TOO policy and National Health Council guidelines, said Tom Kirk, president and CEO at Us TOO. “We have final review over any of the materials [on the site],” said Kirk. After registering, users can expect “ongoing email messages on specific topics related to prostate cancer,” Kirk said.
Lisa Vega, a spokesperson for Centocor, said the website launch coincided with the first day of Prostate Cancer Awareness month. The site will be promoted through Us TOO members and affiliated groups, and follows a satellite media tour that featured Us TOO chairman Fred Mills and Arnold Palmer, which aired on TV, as well as radio news and sports stations, according to an Us TOO announcement. According to Vega, the website and program will be updated with “new information, articles from experts and other resources including webcasts, podcasts and other vehicles.” The site also features a testimonial area where users are encouraged to submit stories for a chance to win Blue Ribbon Recipes for Prostate Health, a cookbook. Vega declined to name the agency that built the website.
Centocor Ortho Biotech, a division of Johnson & Johnson, doesn’t “currently market any treatments for prostate cancer,” said Vega. Ortho Biotech Oncology Research and Development, an affiliate of Centocor, is currently in Phase III trials with abiraterone acetate, an investigational oral androgen biosynthesis inhibitor, for the treatment of metastatic advanced prostate cancer, Vega said.
From the October 01, 2010 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
