Ahead of the 10-year anniversary of Tagrisso’s initial FDA approval this fall, AstraZeneca has debuted the first direct-to-consumer commercial for the lung cancer med.
The TV ad was inspired in large part by the impact Tagrisso has had over the last decade, Arun Krishna, head of the lung cancer franchise in AstraZeneca’s U.S. oncology business unit, said in an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing.
“More than 66,000 patients here in the U.S. have benefited from this targeted treatment,” the vice president said.
When the drug first debuted, according to Krishna, many non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients were unaware of how genetic variants—like the EGFR mutations indicated for treatment with Tagrisso—could be linked to their diagnoses. And, while plenty of progress has been made since then in raising awareness and rates of biomarker testing, “there are still a lot of gaps and challenges in the environment,” he said.
So, in addition to commemorating Tagrisso’s impact on patients’ lives over the last 10 years, “there’s a little bit of education and awareness that lung cancer is not just a ‘smoking disease’; there’s a bit around the importance of getting your biomarkers tested,” Krishna said.
The 90-second commercial features several people answering the question, “Why do I take Tagrisso?” Their responses all begin with “TagrisSO I can … ” and include everyday tasks like cooking for their families, engaging in hobbies and spending time with loved ones, accompanied by clips illustrating each statement.
Amid additional scenes that add goat yoga and nature photography to the list of hobbies enabled by Tagrisso use, a voiceover says the med “helped patients live longer,” while on-screen text refers to clinical trial results in which half of the patients dosed with Tagrisso were alive at 39 months, compared to 32 months for those given another EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor.
After the requisite side effect information, the ad ends with two final “TagrisSO I can” declarations touting the drug’s survival benefit and its status as the No. 1 prescribed medicine as a first treatment for EGFR-positive metastatic NSCLC, per AstraZeneca.
The commercial’s concept was based on feedback from NSCLC patients, advocacy groups and healthcare providers about their real-world experiences with Tagrisso.
“It’s an oral once-a-day pill, and of course there are certain side effects associated with it, but it allows most patients to live that normal life,” Krishna said. “They can go back to what they enjoy doing, in a quality of life that is almost comparable prior to them having lung cancer.”
With the ad, AstraZeneca is primarily trying to reach people newly diagnosed with NSCLC and their caregivers, as its main objective is to boost their awareness of EGFR testing, Krishna said.
Beyond that, the commercial is also aimed at empowering patients and caregivers to “proactively discuss biomarker testing and treatment options” with care teams, as well as “positioning Tagrisso as a leader in this targeted space,” he said.
To reach that audience and achieve those goals, AstraZeneca started by rolling out the commercial on linear TV before expanding to connected TV, along with other digital avenues like paid search and social media, with Krishna noting, “We try to use all channels possible. … We try to leverage technology the best way we can.”