• by Les Luchter , October 11, 2024

Setting the stage for its first consumer product after 25 years as a biopharma development company, Cytokinetics has launched “HCM Beyond the Heart,” an awareness campaign educating cardiologists and other healthcare professionals (HCP) about the personal burdens caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a leading cause of sudden cardiac death.

Cytokinetics expects its HCM drug, currently dubbed “aficamten,” to be approved by the FDA and launched under a different name by some time in 2025.

The educational awareness campaign features the stories of five actual HCM patients.

“Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is so much more than a problem with my heart,” patient Thanh says in one animated programmatic banner ad. “It’s living 20 years with a missed diagnosis. It’s learning to be vulnerable. It’s living for today and not waiting for tomorrow.”

“At Cytokinetics, we believe HCM is not just a heart problem. It’s a human problem,” the ad concludes, inviting HCPs to “register for educational updates.”

Clicking on that suggestion brings HCPs to HCMBeyondTheHeart.com, where additional patient stories are featured – such as that of Algenis, who says HCM caused him to give up long runs, change his career, and worry about how to support his family. 

“’Beyond the Heart’” really looks at the holistic patient,” John Jacoppi, aficamten’s vice president, U.S. marketing, told Marketing Daily.

“We want to make sure we’re ensuring that patients not only receive pharmacotherapeutic care for their HCM, but also some of the support programs and other aspects of care that sometimes a lot of big pharma misses out on,” Jacoppi continued.

Speaking of big pharma, aficamten will be entering a market that’s been held for two years by Camzyos, a Bristol Myers Squibb (BSM) medication. BSM has supported that launch with consumer advertising, such as two :90 spots launched earlier this year which themselves focus on the hardships of living with HCM: one features a woman who got back to doing yoga thanks to the drug, the other an older man happy that he can now continue hiking.

Jacoppi said Cytokinetics hasn’t yet made a decision about whether or not it will do consumer advertising for aficamten.

If it does, the target will not be patients who are already on Camyzos.

“We’re not going to go for switches,” Andrew Callos, Cytokineticschief commercial officer, told analysts on a second earnings call in August, explaining that he expects 80% of people with obstructive HCM (OHCM) not to be on Camyzos by the time of aficamten’s launch.

OHCM now affects some 200,000 people in the U.S., Jacoppi says,

Meanwhile, the HCM awareness campaign is picking up steam.

The website went live late last month, when the campaign was set to be formally unveiled at the Heart Failure Society of America’s annual meeting in Atlanta. But the confab was cancelled due to Hurricane Helene, so the formal campaign launch is now set to occur at the American Heart Association convention, Nov. 16 in Chicago.

In addition to exhibits at such events and the programmatic digital ads, Cytokinetics is also driving HCPs to the HCM site via ads in digital medical journals.