After two years of quietly shifting its medical affairs and commercial strategy units under one roof, Astellas is entering a key growth year with one leader to unite the newly structured business.
It’s been two months since Claus Zieler picked up the medical affairs officer title along with his previously held role of chief commercial officer. The shake-up left the jobs of the company’s chief medical officer and chief scientific officer defunct, but, according to Zieler, this was just the final step in a collaboration he’s been fostering behind the scenes for years now.
After increased partnership prompted the company to create cross-functional brand teams, formally uniting the two business areas was “almost natural” for Astellas, Zieler told Fierce Pharma Marketing in an interview at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting. That way, a doctor or a medical team can interact with “one Astellas” when needing support and information, he explained.
While Astellas may perhaps be “at the forefront” of putting medical affairs together with market access and marketing, as Zieler said, it’s not the only biopharma company to make the move recently. Rocket Pharmaceuticals, for one, just snatched up a former Johnson & Johnson vice president to lead its own combined commercial and medical affairs area.
“I think Astellas is trying to solve the same problem that other players in the industry are grappling,” Zieler said. “There are many factors that lead to treatment choices when a doctor sees a patient, and we need to provide the right information for those choices to be made in the best way.”
It’s an area Astellas is especially keeping an eye on as it looks to build on the growth it has carved out over recent years with new launches of key products across several therapeutic areas.
In the last two years, the company has brought to market two oncology therapies in Padcev and Vyloy, plus geographic atrophy (GA) med Izervay and menopausal hot flash treatment Veozah, all of which helped revenues (PDF) climb 19.2% throughout recently reported fiscal year 2024—“the best growth year in our 20-year history as a company,” according to Zieler.
Still, such a growth spurt comes with certain challenges in the current digital age. The everyday healthcare professional is engaging with several different digital channels in both their personal and professional realms, leaving drugmakers like Astellas to learn how to cater to each in a unique way.
Zieler, who began his career nearly 30 years ago at Germany’s Schering AG before it merged with Bayer in 2006, remembers the days when doctors received information face-to-face. Now, massive medical congresses such as ASCO are “no longer enough.”
“You have to adapt,” the executive said. “You have to customize. You have to understand what the customer actually wants, and you have to orchestrate it.”
Of course, it’s a challenge that spans across the industry. Still, Astellas thinks it could have a head start with its cross-functional brand teams that vary by country, allowing it to adapt to “the local customer in that local context.”
In the U.S., that local context can come through in direct-to-consumer advertising. Veozah has become known for the tagline “Fewer Hot Flashes, More Not Flashes” that has stayed consistent in its TV ads, while Izervay got a parody of the 1975 hit song “Low Rider” in its first ad campaign last year.
The Izervay challenge
Informing potential patients of those two options is especially critical considering the limited treatment market for each. Izervay, for one, currently shares the GA market only with Apellis’ Syfovre. Both drugs are competing in a largely untapped and underdiagnosed market, considering that the condition had no approved drugs until Syfovre launched in 2023.
Izervay is prescribed by a retina specialist, adding an extra step in patient access, as an eye doctor will typically make the referral for a specialist. That referral, especially for patients who haven’t seen an eye doctor yet, could be “a challenge,” and for Astellas, it means that just reaching retina specialists in its Izervay marketing “would not be enough,” CEO Naoki Okamura commented on an April earnings conference call.
Still, Izervay remains the leading treatment over Syfovre, according to Astellas, even after a slowdown in market penetration earlier this year. That setback stemmed from the FDA’s rejection of a label update that would extend the drug’s use beyond its previous “up to 12 months” recommendation. The agency eventually changed its tune in February, clearing treatment for longer use and resulting in a “very strong rebound” in patient uptake, Zieler said on an April earnings conference call.
“We’re a market leader and will stay market leader in this market,” he added on the call. As such, market share is not as much of a concern as is further awareness through DTC approaches and “the right educational activities” to boost that awareness.
Outside of its commercial profile, Astellas boasts a pipeline that includes several products in early development that are nearing proof-of-concept stage. That puts it in a “fortunate position,” as “launch mode” of its strategic brands brings in revenue while the company is also “refueling our pipeline” with the new assets at the same time, Zieler said.
The company has forecast 2025 revenues of 1.93 trillion Japanese yen ($13.3 billion), slightly up from the 1.91 trillion Japanese yen ($13.2 billion) it collected in 2024.