Kevin Conway, Director, U.S. Metabolics Marketing, Alexion Pharmaceuticals
Hypophosphatasia (HPP) is a rare, genetic, metabolic disease in which patients experience devastating effects on multiple systems of the body, leading to debilitating or life-threatening complications. On average, it takes a rare disease patient 4.8 years and 7.3 specialists to receive an accurate diagnosis. Those living with a rare disease have difficulty finding answers, support, or help.
Keeping in mind the many challenges people living with HPP face, Kevin Conway led the creation of a holistic patient ecosystem that addresses the moments that matter in their diagnostic journey. He created new campaigns featuring real patient voices and images, bringing their stories to the forefront of all materials.
A key pillar of this initiative was to create authentic communities for patient engagement on social media. Social media engagement has significant challenges for the biopharmaceutical industry due to privacy issues, adverse event reporting, product mentions by third parties, and unqualified medical advice. Yet Kevin was able to overcome these hurdles and successfully launched Alexion’s first branded Facebook page that allows community commenting. The page provides educational resources to patients and caregivers, and currently has close to 250 followers. Given the rareness of HPP, these are high numbers. With the introduction of commenting, Kevin expects the page to gain critical relevance within the HPP community.
In addition to leading patient marketing for the brand, Kevin also led 2022 Brand Planning, synthesizing strategic imperatives into actionable tactics, and oversees an innovative sales excellence and NPP program for the field.
