Wyeth, last week, launched a new print and television campaign for its latest antidepressant Pristiq (

)-a fairly new drug in a very crowded category. The ads are meant to target people who ignore treatment, discontinue their medication, or simply give up. The creative team at advertising firm JWT interviewed hundreds of patients to find out what they feel when they suffer from depression and what motivates them to speak to their physician.

“Despite the fact that we have more than a dozen modern antidepressants on the market already, there is a significant need for patients that don’t respond to medication; one drug doesn’t fit every patient,” said Andreas Eggert, vice president and global business manager for Pristiq. 

The television spot opens with a woman winding a toy doll that resembles her. The ad then cuts to a visual explaining how Pristiq affects the serotonin and norepinephrine levels in the brain to help patients feel better. 

“Patients said that they feel like they have to wind themselves up to get up in the morning, to get through the day-everything feels more difficult for them and they have to wind themselves up,” Eggert explained.


 Depression isn’t an easy category to advertise in. Beyond the innate melancholy inherent in most of depression commercials (see Eli Lilly’s Depression Hurts), antidepressant treatments have enough side effects to take up half a commercial or one whole side of print ad.

 Wyeth to task this week, claiming that the ad doesn’t appear to meet the latest FDA DTC guidelines, released just a few weeks back. But Eggert said that balancing the risk and benefit information is a significant challenge. 

“While we recognize the importance of communicating both benefits and risks, creatively it is a challenge because it takes 37 seconds of the 

 [to explain the fair balance],” Eggert told 

on Tuesday. “We had to highlight the important aspects of the risk program. We discussed with the FDA, and came to the conclusion what the most important aspects were that we wanted to communicate with the patients.”

Pristiq was approved last year, but Wyeth chose to wait a year before diving into DTC advertising for its new serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor.

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What do you do when you are introducing a new drug in an already crowded category? Wyeth queried depression sufferers to find out what they want to see in a drug ad before launching its new DTC campaign for Pristiq.

Wyeth Winds Up With New Pristiq Campaign

GlaxoSmithKline, on Tuesday, announced a joint venture with Chinese vaccine maker Shenzhen Neptunus to manufacture flu vaccines on Chinese soil. GSK will have a 40 percent stake in the endeavor in exchange for $34 million in cash and assets, with a plan to obtain a controlling share within the next two years. The profits reaped from the deal will be distributed between the two companies in proportion to their respective equity interest. 

In exchange the 40 percent stake, Shenzhen Neptunus will have access to GSK’s adjuvant system, which allows the drugmaker to make a larger quantity of vaccines using a significantly lower amount of antigen, thereby lowering costs and boosting productivity.

GSK already has a presence in China, but does not manufacturer flu vaccines there. Neptunus will provide that local manufacturing capacity. GSK said that it is too early to speculate whether or not it will build new facilities or add new jobs in China based on this venture.

The two companies will initially concentrate on producing the seasonal influenza vaccine for China, Hong Kong, and Macau, and eventually produce pre-pandemic and pandemic influenza vaccines.

“This deal is really about working with a local company with proven experience that has access to the Chinese influenza antigens and other local strains,” GSK spokesperson Lisa Behrens told 

 on Wednesday. “We are going to be able to take a lot of their local expertise and culture and put that with some of the technology and experience manufacturing vaccines that GSK has.”

GSK has not announced plans to increase awareness of the flu vaccine or what community outreach it will do to encourage Chinese citizens to get a flu shot. According to Behrens, the current influenza vaccination rate in China is less than 2 percent. 

At execution of the agreement, there will be a feasibility report that goes to the bureau of trading and investment in China to be reviewed and approved. The deal is expected to be approved by the end of the Q4 2009.

Last July, GSK announced that it was boosting its R&D personnel in China to 200, with plans to increase staff to 350 by 2009. No word yet as to whether that number has been met.

GlaxoSmithKline is expanding its influenza vaccine efforts through a joint R&D alliance with Shenzhen Neptunus. The goal: to tap the world’s biggest market and attempt to deliver flu shots to more than a billion people.

Pharmaceutical Executive-06-11-2009

Wyeth Winds Up With New Pristiq Campaign

GSK Teams with Shenzhen Neptunus for Chinese Vaccines