Merck & Co. is leveraging March 4’s International HPV Awareness Day for a marketing campaign in China, lighting up landmark buildings in four megacities in the hopes of reigniting demand amid floundering sales of its vaccine Gardasil.
Merck, known as Merck Sharp & Dohme outside the U.S., has donned landmarks in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu with neon lights to highlight the HPV-focused awareness day.
Shanghai’s Citigroup Tower, Beijing’s Silk Market shopping mall, Guangzhou’s Guangfa Mansion and Chengdu’s Financial City Twin Towers were seen glowing with Merck’s signature green hue Tuesday evening local time, according to posts on China’s social media platform Weibo.
The illuminating lights bore one message in white and yellow: “Both men and women should take early precautions against HPV.”
The message was apparently designed to fit a broader push in China to boost male vaccination against HPV-related diseases following Gardasil’s local approval earlier this year in males aged 9 to 26. In collaboration with state news agency Xinhua’s Xinhuanet, Merck in January launched an HPV prevention campaign for both men and women, with the goal to provide HPV-related education across the country.
Tuesday’s eye-catching event marks Merck’s latest efforts to try to turn the plunging Gardasil franchise around amid shrinking demand in China, one of its largest markets.
During the last three months of 2024, Gardasil’s sales declined by 18% year over year to $1.6 billion, and Merck cited lower adoption in China as the main cause. As a result of the lackluster performance, Merck has paused shipments of Gardasil doses to China and withdrawn its previous $11 billion peak sales target for the HPV shot.
Merck’s marketing drive Tuesday was met with some skeptical eyes.
“Trying to deceive people into vaccination, again,” reads a comment below a pinned top post under a trending Weibo topic (Chinese) about the nationwide light show. That entire topic had received about 7.4 million views as of publication time.
Another Weibo topic pointed to a 2023 study published in The Lancet Global Health suggesting that more than 90% of sexually active men will be infected with HPV in their lifetime.
“Can’t deceive girls, so now they’re starting to deceive boys,” a comment reads under a pinned post for that topic (Chinese), which has garnered about 9.4 million views.
Vaccine skeptics represent just one challenge that Merck faces in China.
“Lower appetite for discretionary vaccines amid macro uncertainties and rising competition from domestic players are the major reasons behind this demand retreat,” Zhang Jialin, head of China healthcare research at Nomura International in Hong Kong, said of the Gardasil situation in China, as quoted by Bloomberg.
Because Gardasil does not belong to China’s national immunization program, people must pay out of pocket to take the shot.
“Like many other companies, we’ve seen increased pressure on discretionary consumer spending, including across the vaccine space more broadly,” Merck CEO Rob Davis said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in February.
Foreseeing similar difficulties in rolling out these pay-out-of-pocket vaccines, GSK recently also dialed back its near-term expectations for shingles vaccine Shingrix in China.
The British pharma has revised its commercialization partnership with local firm Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products. While the original three-year pact was extended to 11 years, the purchase amount was adjusted from 20.6 billion Chinese yuan worth of Shingrix doses over three years to 21.6 billion Chinese yuan in total in six years.
Zhifei is also Merck’s collaborator on Gardasil in China.