Ogilvy Health

Feb 24, 2023

Beth Snyder Bulik Senior Editor As­traZeneca is of­fer­ing a look be­hind the phar­ma’s front doors with a new US lead­er­ship pro­file se­ries and an in­side sci­ence ex­plain­er pod­cast. The on­line ex­ec­u­tive se­ries called “Per­son­i­fied” de­buted last year, but AZ re­cent­ly be­gan pro­mot­ing it on so­cial me­dia. Eight US lead­ers’ sto­ries are now up on the web­site, in­clud­ing US bio­phar­ma busi­ness unit chief Joris Silon and cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment af­fairs head Christie Bloomquist. The pro­files chron­i­cle the ex­ec­u­tives’ ear­ly lives and in­flu­ences lead­ing them to ca­reers at As­traZeneca. Bren­dan McEvoy “The goal is to pull back the cur­tain if you will, in­to As­traZeneca and high­light the unique mo­ti­va­tions and per­son­al­i­ties of our US lead­er­ship teams,” said Bren­dan McEvoy, US head of ex­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions. “…Some­times out­side the walls of As­traZeneca, we might not be per­ceived as peo­ple first – with am­bi­tions and mo­ti­va­tions and ex­pe­ri­ences, and so we want­ed to open up that door.” McEvoy is al­so the host of the pod­cast se­ries “That’s Un­der­stand­able.” As the ti­tle im­plies, the in­tent of the au­dio chats is to break down and ex­plain com­plex sci­ence ideas so that lis­ten­ers walk away un­der­stand­ing the top­ic. As he ex­plains in a short in­tro­duc­tion, the pod­cast aims “to help break down a va­ri­ety of is­sues at in­ter­sec­tion of health­care, busi­ness, cul­ture and our plan­et. Ide­al­ly leav­ing each episode with a greater un­der­stand­ing of how we got to that point and what As­traZeneca is do­ing to help cre­ate a pos­i­tive im­pact.” The first 25-minute episode, called “Mov­ing Moun­tains,” is a con­ver­sa­tion with Silon about his per­son­al life — he’s work­ing to be­come more and more veg­e­tar­i­an in his food choic­es and is learn­ing to gar­den —  but al­so the as­pi­ra­tions of the As­traZeneca phar­ma busi­ness and broad­er con­cerns around sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cli­mate change. With just one episode aired — and the March pod­cast on health eq­ui­ty be­ing read­ied — McEvoy said em­ploy­ees and oth­ers are pitch­ing ideas and top­ics for fu­ture chats. The goal for each episode is one As­traZeneca leader and an ex­ter­nal guest for ad­di­tion­al in­sight. “We’re def­i­nite­ly look­ing at dif­fer­ent ways in which we can reach the var­i­ous stake­hold­ers or au­di­ence that we in­ter­act with,” McEvoy said, tick­ing off a laun­dry list of peo­ple in­clud­ing health­care work­ers, phar­ma em­ploy­ees, care­givers, pa­tients, em­ploy­ees, pa­tient ad­vo­ca­cy groups, pro­fes­sion­al so­ci­eties and gov­ern­ment agency work­ers who might be in­ter­est­ed in the pro­file se­ries and pod­casts. AUTHOR Associate Editor Pfizer is ending its work with research contractor Care Access on an 18,000-patient Lyme disease vaccine trial, according to an internal email reviewed by Endpoints News, widening the breach that has emerged between the drug giant and the richly-valued research startup in recent days. Last week, Pfizer said it was removing thousands of patients recruited by Care Access from the Phase III work, citing issues with how Care Access had conducted its part of the trial. At the time, it was unclear whether any collaboration between the companies on the Lyme research would continue and if Care Access would recruit new patients. Premium subscription required Beth Snyder Bulik Senior Editor Bristol Myers Squibb’s social media savvy nabbed it the top spot in Ogilvy Health’s newest report ranking of 10 leading Big Pharmas. It was followed by Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche, GSK and AstraZeneca to round out the top five receiving the best overall scores. BMS led in the specific areas of content strategy and social influence across the six social measures Ogilvy scores the pharmas on. Ogilvy evaluated the pharmas in six social measures, including corporate identity, experience and design, paid social, and social community, along with strategy and influence. Its research audited pharma engagement on social channels Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 161,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP John Carroll Editor & Founder The roller-coaster ride of highs and lows at Cambridge, MA-based Fulcrum Therapeutics just took a sickening plunge. Weeks after using some upbeat results to set the stage for a $125 million raise — no easy feat in this market — the Fulcrum team got hit with a full clinical hold on one of their top drugs. And the news ripped up a chunk of market value that sent shares $FULC tumbling more than 50% Friday morning. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 161,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP LOG IN