• by Les Luchter , October 8, 2024

Currax Pharmaceuticals, which markets the 10-year-old Contrave pill to combat food cravings, has launched “Quiet the Food Noise,” an awareness campaign about the condition.

Without mentioning Contrave, the campaign features :15 videos running on connected TV and YouTube, and :30 audios running on radio and podcasts.

In one of the videos, a pint of ice cream tempts a woman. In another, a bag of chips suggests that a man indulge in a late-night snack. Both end with the line, “Help control your cravings and support weight loss goals at FoodNoise.com.”

That site describes food noise as “constant, intrusive thoughts about food” and provides lots of info to help diagnose the condition.

Derrick Gastineau, Currax’s head of marketing, tells Marketing Daily that the goal of “Quiet the Food Noise” is to “generate broad awareness around the concept of food noise and the fact that it is a challenge of so many individuals living with obesity.”

Currax , he says, also wants to ensure that patients “have access to the education and resources they need to live healthier lives.”

As part of its campaign, Currax has teamed with the My Weight - What to Know organization, which it says is providing a questionnaire to its community “to better understand how individuals define food noise and its barrier for individuals seeking healthy weight management.” 

How prevalent is food noise?

Currax cites research from the Stop Obesity alliance out of George Washington University that 57% of people who are overweight or living with obesity say they experience food noise, and 67% wish they didn’t think about food as often as they do.

FoodNoise.com says you might have food noise if “you are having persistent unwanted, and repetitive thoughts about food and eating, you don't physically feel hungry but you have a desire to eat, your thoughts seem to be mostly about unhealthy foods, you can't seem to find relief from thoughts about certain foods until you eat that specific food.”

The site also has two links – one labeled “Get Help to Control Food Cravings,” and the other “Learn More.”  Both links takes users to contrave.com.

Contrave, which combines the antidepressant bupropion with anti-addiction naltrexone, has been running a campaign titled “One Size Does Not Fit All” for the past two years. Gastineau says the campaign uses digital marketing, social media, point-of-care, and video, with testimonials from Contrave patients.

While a condition-specific obesity drug like Contrave may have become overshadowed in the past couple of years by GLP-1s like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic, Gastineau points out that “the recognition of obesity as a chronic, multi-factorial disease requiring multiple therapeutic solutions has grown immensely.”

And “the stigma around seeking treatment to address the challenges of obesity has lessened, which has led to an increase in the utilization of FDA-approved prescription medications for healthy weight management.” So “It’s critical that patients and practitioners are aware of all approved therapeutic options in order to truly begin to address this epidemic.”

Contrave is the only FDA-approved medication that impacts two areas of the brain “to reduce hunger and help to control cravings,” he notes.