In this MM+M Fast Break, Jack O’Brien talks with Rebecca Lannan, senior marketing director at Supernus Pharmaceuticals, about the brand’s partnership with actress Busy Philipps about her ADHD diagnosis, her use of non-stimulant treatment Qelbree and her work to raise awareness among young girls. Check us out at: mmm-online.com Follow us:  YouTube: @MMM-online TikTok: @MMMnews  Instagram: @MMMnewsonline Twitter/X: @MMMnews LinkedIn: MM+M To read more of the most timely, balanced and original reporting in medical marketing, subscribe here. Note: The MM+M Podcast uses spe ..read more

Social media is now the largest channel worldwide in terms of adspend, having overtaken paid search last year, and is forecast to total $247.3bn in 2024, up 14.3% year on year. Data sourced from GWI shows that time spent with social platforms has increased by 50% over the past decade, from an average daily consumption of 95 minutes to 152 minutes in 2024, and according to Data.ai, worldwide user numbers across social platforms have risen by 169% since 2014. Alex Brownsell, head of content, Warc Media, said: “Much of social media’s success has been driven by Meta’s remarkable renaissance ..read more

Healthcare provider LifeStance Health has teamed up with Leica Camera on a campaign that uses photography and poetry to reduce stigmas around mental health.  The Not One Face campaign, which started in 2021, launched its latest iteration this week with a video titled There is Not One Face to Mental Health.  It features a slideshow of black-and-white and color photographs backed by music and a poetry reading by Hussain Manawer, a celebrated British author who has written about his mental health struggles. The launch coincides with Mental Health Awareness Month and comes am ..read more

Headlines are flying after the Department of Agriculture confirmed that the H5N1 bird flu virus has infected dairy cows around the country. Tests have detected the virus among cattle in nine states, mainly in Texas and New Mexico, and most recently in Colorado, said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a May 1 event held by the Council on Foreign Relations. A menagerie of other animals have been infected by H5N1, and at least one person in Texas. But what scientists fear most is if the virus were to spread efficiently from person to perso ..read more

Boehringer Ingelheim announced Thursday that it is teaming up with Walgreens to diversify its clinical trials. As part of the joint effort, the retail pharmacy chain will provide Boehringer Ingelheim access to select Walgreens locations as clinical trial sites to support a Phase 3 trial for an obesity drug.  The two healthcare companies are seeking out people who are overweight, living with obesity or have type 2 diabetes – specifically Black and Hispanic patient populations. The effort bolsters Boehringer Ingelheim’s investments in treatments for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic dise ..read more

Federal antitrust officials have redoubled efforts to challenge what they see as improper pharma patent listings that delay the market entry of generic drugs. This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent warning letters to 10 drugmakers, disputing the accuracy of some 300 patent listings in the Food and Drug Administration’s so-called “Orange Book.”  The crackdown, which comes six months after FTC challenged 10 pharma majors in a similar fashion, targets so-called “junk” patents — listings the regulator disputes as improper or inaccurate.  The most recent letters cal ..read more

Amgen’s quarterly profit slid 1% but its revenue jumped 22%, according to its latest earnings report released Thursday afternoon. For the quarter, Amgen recorded $7.4 billion in revenue, thanks largely to 22% growth in product sales and 25% growth in volume. Amgen’s non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) fell 1% of $3.96 but still topped Wall Street estimates of $3.89. Among its product offerings, Prolia brought in nearly $1 billion in sales, Repatha sales increased 33% to $517 million and sales of Evenity jumped 35% to $342 million. Blincyto and Vectibix both had quarterly sales exceeding $240 mi ..read more

The World Health Organization has issued a report that transforms how the world understands respiratory infections like COVID-19, influenza, and measles. Motivated by grave missteps in the pandemic, the WHO convened about 50 experts in virology, epidemiology, aerosol science, and bioengineering, among other specialties, who spent two years poring through the evidence on how airborne viruses and bacteria spread. However, the WHO report stops short of prescribing actions that governments, hospitals, and the public should take in response. It remains to be seen how the Centers for Disease Contro ..read more

The most popular weekly working pattern among adland employees is two days in the office with three remote, according to the latest analysis of the Advertising Association’s All In Census.  A third (34%) of respondents to the study said two days in the office would be their preferred balance, followed by three days (favoured by 23%), one day (22%), none at all (10%) and then four days (8%). Five days was the least popular option (3%). This is at odds with wider trends across the industry, as Publicis Groupe has moved to bring all employees back to the office for three days a week an ..read more

“Congress prohibits the NIH from researching the cause of mass shootings.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in an April 21 post on X The National Institutes of Health is the federal government’s main agency for supporting medical research. Is it barred from researching mass shootings? That’s what presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said recently. Kennedy, whose statements about conspiracy theories earned him PolitiFact’s 2023 “Lie of the Year,” is running as an independent third-party candidate against President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic candidate, and the presumptive Republican n ..read more