PhRMA is launching a Hispanic outreach effort to be fronted by a popular Univision TV personality. Mayte Prida, a former Univision talk show host and breast cancer survivor, will serve as a national spokesperson for the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA), and will feature in a revamped PhRMA Spanish-language Web site. Prida, who has graduated from news anchor and producer of Univision’s “America” to hosting children’s shows like Fútbol con Mayte and El Mundo de Mayte, will feature in a 60-second ad to air nationally on Hispanic networks and will appear with the PPA bus in a dozen heavily Hispanic cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Antonio. She will also write a monthly column for a revamped PhRMA en Espanol site (www.phrma.org/espanol). “We were probably as guilty as anyone of simply taking our existing site and translating it into Spanish,” said PhRMA SVP, communications Ken Johnson. “It dawned on me that for this to be relevant, we need to ask them what they want instead of telling them what they want, so we spent a great deal of time examining issues that have cultural relevance to Hispanics, and the result is a site that complements our English-language site but is different in many ways.”PhRMA will host a “big event” promoting the PPA in Los Angeles September 15th, on the eve of Mexican Independence Day. The organization is also running a series of print and TV disease-education ads. The TV spots will air year-round on cable news outlets like CNN, Fox, CNBC and MSNBC. The current spot focuses on cardiovascular health, and will be followed by one on cancer treatment. The disease-state ads will be rotated every two months, Johnson said, running alongside the PPA spots. New ads featuring Montel Williams will hit primetime network TV in the fall.