According to a new team-up between Eisai and Pokémon, when it comes to healthy sleep habits, people of all ages have gotta catch ’em all.
Eisai is partnering up with the media franchise’s Pokémon Sleep app on a push to raise awareness of the importance of good sleep. The initiative is based in Japan, where the pharma is headquartered and where data suggest nearly 12% of adults experience insomnia and about 40% of people sleep less than six hours per night on average, according to Eisai’s Thursday announcement (PDF).
The initiative is meant to combine Eisai’s scientific expertise with the playful approach of the mobile app, which is placed on a user’s bed overnight to track sleep. It uses the nightly results not only to provide sleep quality reports but also to generate digital rewards, unlocking new characters and using those connections to nourish the famously sleepy character Snorlax, who serves as the app’s mascot.
To kick off the collaboration, Eisai will distribute a picture book called “Snorlax’s Dream” to Japanese medical institutions that offer sleep disorder consultations, with a particular focus on those that have registered with Eisai’s “Sleep Consultation Navigator” website.
The book takes place in the world of Pokémon Sleep, with Pokémon characters discussing the importance of and tips for healthy sleep while they embark on a quest to find Snorlax.
Elsewhere, Eisai also plans to further build on the collaboration with Pokémon Sleep with updates to its educational materials and new video content about healthy sleep habits.
The Pokémon Sleep partnership is part of Eisai’s goal of building “an ecosystem in the sleep field,” the company said Thursday.
Eisai sells Dayvigo for adults with insomnia, and the company is also in the process of developing a potential treatment for narcolepsy. Last fall, the pharma shared promising results from a small phase 1b study of that med, a novel selective orexin 2 receptor agonist dubbed E2086.