Chris Horvath, Director of Marketing, Prostate Cancer, Bayer Pharmaceuticals
Chris Horvath has been marketing in the Advanced Prostate Cancer (APC) space since 2011, across five brands, but he currently leads the marketing for Xofigo (radium-223 dichloride), which is for men whose prostate cancer has spread to the bone and is causing symptoms.
This is important when you consider that in APC, the majority of men die of Bone Metastatic Disease (BMD). The only issue with that: Many physicians don’t think of BMD as the key driver of mortality in their patients. Instead, the perception is patients die of “prostate cancer” or the more lethal visceral disease (liver, lung, or brain metastasis). Chris and his team knew they needed to educate healthcare professionals and elevate the role bone plays in survival for APC patients.
The “Bone Mets Kill” disease education campaign was created to achieve this and validated through partnerships with urology and oncology KOLs. Although multiple channels were used, personal promotion was prioritized to deliver the clinically based messages focused on functional benefits, rather than emotional. Thus, Chris and his team created multiple resources that focused on three key areas highlighting BMD differentiation: Multiple symptoms are associated with BMD, bone mets spawn more bone mets, and change your clinical approach as disease progresses.
Results have been positive; both physician feedback through the sales force and multiple wave market research has shown a high unaided awareness of the campaigns’ messages, which were highly rated in terms of believability, relevance, and overall impact on intent to prescribe. Overall, Chris is proud of his team for identifying key market insights and translating them to an impactful strategic output that helped educate his customers on the importance of BMD and impact on patients with APC.
