Incyte is strutting its stuff to boost awareness and support for people with vitiligo—with help from supermodel Winnie Harlow.
Harlow is the face of a newly launched campaign from Incyte—the maker of nonsegmental vitiligo treatment Opzelura. Dubbed “The Power of Choice,” the unbranded campaign aims to encourage people with vitiligo to take a more active role in learning about and managing the skin condition.
The Canadian model, who has spoken openly about her experiences with vitiligo throughout her public career and broken ground as the first person with vitiligo to appear on many major magazine covers and runways, appears in two videos on the campaign’s website.
In one, which credits her as “the most recognizable person living with vitiligo today,” she returns to her childhood apartment to walk through her memories of growing up with the autoimmune condition.
“If I could go back in time, I would tell little Winnie that the world is so much bigger than she thinks it is,” Harlow says in the video, which is interspersed with clips of a young girl with vitiligo playing in the same room to represent “little Winnie.”
Harlow recalls how she used to wish she “looked like everyone else,” but notes that “having gone through what I did and being on the other side of it now, I wouldn’t change a thing, because it made me who I am.”
She adds, “Having the option to decide for yourself on what to do or what not to do—that gives us our power back. … You only get one life in your skin. You choose how you wanna live it—just you.”
The other video shows the “little Winnie” reading a letter to her future self in which she describes being bullied and shunned for her skin’s appearance and asks whether she’ll ever have a choice in how she feels about her vitiligo, “because no one should have to feel what I felt today.”
“Let me tell you, girl, change is coming,” the present-day Harlow responds. “The future of vitiligo is getting brighter.”
The campaign is housed within Incyte’s longstanding “This Is Vitiligo” unbranded resource hub and so includes links to pages offering information about vitiligo and available management options.
A link to “connect with a dermatologist,” meanwhile, directs visitors to an online tool for booking a virtual appointment via the branded Opzelura website.
The partnership with Harlow is aimed at both highlighting the real experience of someone with vitiligo and emphasizing the importance of taking control of the condition, whether through “treatment, care or simply understanding what’s happening beneath the skin,” Matteo Trotta, general manager of U.S. dermatology at Incyte, said in Tuesday’s campaign launch announcement.
In addition to Opzelura, which secured FDA approval for vitiligo in 2022, Incyte is currently studying another JAK inhibitor, povorcitinib, in the condition, with plans to share phase 3 data next year. The company is also pursuing the candidate in hidradenitis suppurativa, prurigo nodularis and asthma.