Amid the launch of its non-opioid pain med Journavx, Vertex Pharmaceuticals has begun an awareness-raising blitz focused on acute pain management.
The new campaign stars former NFL quarterback Alex Smith, whose leg injury during a 2018 game led to a case of life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis, sepsis and 17 surgeries. Though amputation was considered at one point, Smith ultimately recovered without losing his leg, then returned to pro football for one more season in 2020.
Vertex’s freshly launched Pain Game Plan site includes a four-minute video in which Smith and his wife, Elizabeth, reflect on his injury and its aftermath. They talk about the immense pain he was in throughout the recovery process—and what they describe as the “overwhelming” task of figuring out how to safely manage that pain with the opioid medications Smith had been prescribed.
“I knew all too well how serious opiates were. My wife was terrified of them; she kept them under lock and key,” he says. “You feel guilty asking for them.”
Both of the Smiths go on to emphasize the importance of having a plan in place to deal with both unexpected and expected instances of acute pain. Elizabeth expresses her wish that she’d “had the foresight to plan earlier on,” while Alex notes that once pain has already set in, it can be so overwhelming that “everything else in your life takes a back seat.”
Toward the video’s end, he says, “As a patient, so often you aren’t the expert, so you don’t speak up and you don’t advocate and you don’t ask questions—but, certainly, anybody coming out of the hospital that’s dealing with acute pain needs to have a personalized plan. You’re the one driving, and you are in control.”
In addition to the video, the campaign site features a Pain Game Planner: a four-point checklist for visitors to use to compile their own plans for managing acute pain.
The campaign materials will go out via earned media and both Vertex and Smith’s social media pages, according to a company spokesperson.
“At Vertex, our goal is to redefine what’s possible in pain management through breakthrough science. Pain Game Plan is an extension of that mission, raising awareness about the importance of proactive, personalized pain management,” Stuart Arbuckle, the company’s chief operating officer, said in a statement sent to Fierce Pharma Marketing.
“Partnering with Alex Smith allows us to share his powerful real-life story that underscores why patients need to understand their options, including nonopioid therapies,” Arbuckle continued. “This campaign reflects our commitment to transforming the treatment of pain and supporting patients every step of the way.”
Though the initiative is unbranded, the checklist does encourage visitors to consider “nonopioid options” when discussing pain management with their doctors, which aligns with Vertex’s current rollout of Journavx, billed as the first new class of non-opioid pain med to be approved by the FDA in decades.