Situation

Rare anaemias such as thalassaemia and sickle cell anaemia are a growing problem in the UK, particularly within ethnic populations. Blood transfusions are often necessary, but this results in too much iron entering the body, which builds up to toxic levels and leads to organ damage and death.

Iron chelation therapy is used to remove excess iron but until now, the gold standard chelator involved a painful nightly infusion by needle and pump, lasting from eight to 12 hours per day for five to seven nights a week.

Exjade® (deferasirox), developed by Novartis, is the first once-daily iron chelator and is administered as a tablet dispersed in water or juice. This represents a breakthrough for patients and will not only improve patient quality of life, but also open up iron chelation to a wider patient population.

Programme

Ruder Finn developed the communications strategy for the launch of Exjade, ensuring that activities would focus on key ethnic communities, where awareness is still low due to the stigma surrounding genetic conditions. Spokespeople and patients were identified for key communities and regions to ensure interest from media targets.

For the UK media launch of Exjade, Ruder Finn worked with patient groups, patients, UK haematologists and nurses to raise awareness of these devastating conditions and communicate the breakthrough nature of Exjade.