With great power comes great responsibility, and Insulet, accordingly, is using its influence in the diabetes management space to improve the representation of people living with diabetes.
The insulin pump maker announced Wednesday that it has collaborated with comic book publishing giant Marvel to develop a comic about a superhero who has Type 1 diabetes.
In “Dyasonic: Sound of Strength,” protagonist Omnya struggles to manage her diabetes until she begins using Insulet’s Omnipod 5 insulin pump. The confidence boost she gets from using the technology helps her embrace her other strengths, including the science skills she uses to create a pair of gloves that can channel sonic frequencies—thus turning her into the superhero now known as Dyasonic.
The comic was written by Paul Allor, who has previously penned additions to the “Avengers,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Power Rangers” comic book collections, among many others. Allor used their own experience living with diabetes to inform Omnya/Dyasonic’s story.
The main goal of the comic, per Insulet, is to break down stigmas and biases and help people with diabetes feel seen and understood.
In the announcement, the company cited survey data showing that while the vast majority of people with Type 1 diabetes think it’s important to see people with diabetes accurately portrayed in culture, barely half could remember seeing any such representation in the previous year. About a third of those surveyed said they were likely to hide their diabetes from others, citing shame, fear of judgment and a desire to avoid explaining the condition.
Meanwhile, the comic is also aimed at showing readers with diabetes how technology like the company’s Omnipod 5 device—which last year became the first automated insulin pump to earn FDA clearance for adults with Type 2 diabetes, joining its original Type 1 green light—can help improve their health and quality of life.
“Managing diabetes, especially when it involves intensive insulin therapy, requires making countless decisions. From calculating insulin doses to monitoring blood glucose levels, the mental burden can be overwhelming,” said Insulet CEO Ashley McEvoy. “Collaborating with Marvel on this story empowers readers from the diabetes community to see themselves represented. Diabetes can be a part of what makes you strong by harnessing the technology of Omnipod 5 to help simplify life.”
In an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing last summer, Lucas Escobar, Insulet’s head of U.S. consumer marketing, discussed the company’s habit of leaning into pop culture for various marketing efforts.
“If you look at the different things that we’re doing as a brand, Omnipod is trying to tap into different places in culture and build campaigns and activations that are outside of the traditional norm to empower the community to have the conversations where they’re comfortable,” he said.
“What we’re trying to do is break outside of [the traditional advocacy space] and try to insert diabetes in unexpected places: have more diabetes representation, have the right diabetes representation and have Omnipod be the catalyst for that representation to show up in TV, in movies, in music, in video games—and have that be the platform for people with diabetes to feel represented and also amplify their stories,” Escobar added.
Meanwhile, Insulet isn’t the only company in the life sci space to tap Marvel for a supercharged awareness push.
Back in 2022, Pfizer and BioNTech commissioned a Marvel comic book—also written by Allor—that used a fight between the Avengers and their previously defeated foe Ultron to symbolize the protection that a COVID-19 vaccine can offer.
Before that, in 2016, Takeda turned to the comic book giant to create a new hero, Samarium, to shine a light on life with inflammatory bowel disease.