• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, October 24, 2024

“You know what you don’t see in psoriasis commercials?” asks a voiceover in Johnson & Johnson’s new Tremfya spot as a bikinied blonde plays volleyball on the beach. A director then yells “cut,” and we see that the blonde has been filming a commercial within the commercial.

“The thousands of real people who go undiagnosed, people whose psoriasis can look very different depending on their skin tone,” the VO answers as the spot redirects to the fictional director: a Black woman who sports a very visible skin condition around her elbow.

Mohamed Issa, vice president of marketing for dermatology & rheumatology at Johnson & Johnson, readily admits that J&J has itself been guilty of such biases in the past.

“Most psoriasis commercials,” he tells Pharma & Health Insider, “have inadvertently painted a one-dimensional picture of life with psoriasis that overlooks some of these nuances people experience with the disease.”

While about 22% of the 8 million known U.S. psoriasis patients are people of color, J&J cites a study showing that whites have constituted 93% of people shown in psoriasis TV ads.

And the actual number of non-whites with psoriasis is probably significantly higher than that 22%.

“Psoriasis is a highly prevalent disease,” Issa explains, “but it may look and manifest differently on darker skin tones.” This can lead to delays in diagnoses and even to misdiagnoses.

You could place the root cause of this on underrepresentation in clinical research. “Only about 14% of participants in phase 3 psoriasis studies are people of color,” Issa states.

Then, there’s limited education among healthcare providers (HCPs) on how psoriasis “presents on different skin cells.” Only “between 4% to 19% of images in dermatology textbooks showcase darker skin tones,” Issa says.

J&J is helping to solve the latter problem by providing HCPs with an extensive library of images showing how psoriasis looks across multiple skin tones.

And, addressing the research problem, those images come from a multiyear J&J study called “VISIBLE,” which Issa calls a “first-of-its-kind clinical trial dedicated to people of color living with plaque psoriasis, to address these very specific gaps in representation.”

The initial study data, cleared with the FDA, “really reinforced that Tremfya is safe, effective, and a durable treatment option for people with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis across all skin tones,” Issa says.

And when he says all, he means it.

In a campaign that could easily have been targeted just to non-whites, “we’re really looking to reach a wide range of patients and audiences across TV, streaming channels and digital vehicles,” he declares.

“We’re broadcasting it pretty widely,” he explains, “because it’s inclusive, with the intent of showing that psoriasis and a product like Tremfya can impact all patients across all skin tones.

That said, “our primary goal is…to close health equity gaps. We know that thousands of people with psoriasis go undiagnosed and many of those are people of color,” he explains. “We also know that people of color with psoriasis wait three times as long to receive an advanced treatment, and something like 70% are less likely to be prescribed a biologic therapy, which is now the standard of care.”

While Tremfya also continues running another year-old, also inclusive but more efficacy-focused campaign called “Emerge as You,” Issa says the new spot will probably “carry at least 30% to 40% of our overall TV budget” through year’s end.

Created by IPG Health’s Area 23, the spot began running at the end of September and will likely continue into 2025. Media agency is The Practice/J3, part of IPG’s UM.

“We hope the commercial puts all people with psoriasis on a path to an accurate diagnosis, having informed conversations with their healthcare providers” says Issa, “so they can get the support they need and, more importantly, deserve.”