To promote its newly launched nonhormonal menopause drug, Bayer is linking Lynkuet with a familiar face.
The Big Pharma has recruited Gabrielle Union-Wade to serve as a celebrity endorser for the medication, a nonhormonal treatment aimed at reducing moderate to severe hot flashes due to menopause.
Union-Wade has long been a vocal advocate for a wide range of causes, including many affecting women’s health—from reproductive justice to breast cancer awareness—and is a Lynkuet user herself, both factors that led her to the Bayer partnership.
“We talk about everything, so why does talking about menopause sometimes feel taboo? I’m partnering with Bayer on the ‘Life Doesn’t Stop for a Hot Flash’ campaign because I want to use my voice for things that matter, like menopause,” she said in this week’s announcement. “To me, it’s all about being honest, helping women know there are treatment options for moderate to severe hot flashes due to menopause and emphasizing something I’ve learned since entering menopause: We need to talk about this!”
That message continues through a minute-long commercial for the campaign, which starts with Union-Wade walking through a gallery of memorable moments from her life and career as she introduces Lynkuet. As a voiceover comes in to list the drug’s uses, risks and side effects, the imagery shifts to follow a group of female friends going about their own lives.
“Enjoy the celebrations, own the room and be in the moment—with fewer hot flashes,” Union-Wade says while watching clips of the women’s lives, later adding, “Our lives don’t stop for hot flashes, so don’t let hot flashes stop you.”
The commercial ends with the actor and author offering up the tagline: “Why sweat it? Lynkuet it.”
The “Life Doesn’t Stop for a Hot Flash” campaign will run across digital channels and streaming services, with the goal of encouraging women to talk to their doctors about hot flash treatments like Lynkuet, per Bayer.
To that end, alongside the new campaign’s imagery, the Lynkuet website also features a downloadable discussion guide to help shape those conversations with healthcare teams.
Lynkuet earned its U.S. approval in October, making it the third nonhormonal menopause symptom drug approved by the FDA. It targets the NK1 and NK3 receptors in the brain, which play a role in temperature regulation, according to Bayer. Competitor Veozah, from Astellas Pharma, targets NK3, while Sebela Pharmaceuticals’ Brisdelle is a reformulation of the decades-old antidepressant paroxetine.
Hormonal hot flash treatments containing estrogen with or without progesterone have fallen out of popularity in recent years due to sometimes severe side effects and studies linking them to an increased risk of breast and endometrial cancers, stroke and other serious conditions.
Bayer has estimated that up to 80% of women report hot flashes at some point during menopause and that as many as 1.2 billion women around the world will be experiencing menopause as of 2030. In offering up Lynkuet to that vast market, Bayer pointed to study data showing significant reductions in both severity and frequency of hot flashes over the course of several weeks, with more than 80% of Lynkuet patients achieving at least a 50% reduction in vasomotor symptom frequency by Week 26.