Count Broadway star Taye Diggs as the latest addition to sleep drug maker Idorsia’s celebrity arsenal.
Just a few weeks after its insomnia drug Quviviq hit the market, the company said it has signed the original "Rent" cast member and TV actor as a patient ambassador in its first branded DTC campaign.
Diggs joins fellow Idorsia spokesperson and insomnia sufferer Jennifer Aniston, who earlier this year paved the way for Quviviq’s launch in the company's unbranded “Seize the Night & Day” campaign.
“Taye is a natural partner for us because of his desire to help others understand that insomnia is a real medical condition,” Patricia Torr, president and general manager of Idorsia U.S., said in a release announcing the campaign this week.
Diggs, who spent six years playing Dr. Sam Bennett on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff “Private Practice” and appeared in a recurring role on the Fox hit “Empire,” can also personally vouch for the drug. After trying multiple over-the-counter and prescription treatments over the years, he asked his doctor about other options and was prescribed Quviviq, he says in the the release.
Diggs opens up about his sleep struggles in a video on the drug's branded website, where he traces the start of his insomnia to the birth of his now 12-year-old son, Walker Nathaniel.
Trading night shifts with his then-wife (actress and singer Idina Menzel of "Frozen" and "Wicked" fame) Diggs would wake with Walker during the night and stay up with him until he fell back asleep.
“I started to get anxiety before I would go to bed, wondering how much sleep I would get,” he recalls in the unscripted video. He talks about how his demanding, high-energy stage work would later compound the problem because he'd come home too “amped up” to sleep.
“When you’re lucky enough to be living out your dream and doing what you want but because of something as simple as lack of sleep you’re unable to do that, it felt absolutely—it was treacherous,” he says.
Diggs and Aniston are part of a lineup of celebrity partners that also includes Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer, who narrated Idorsia’s unbranded documentary “The Quest for Sleep.'' Released in March, the film follows the lives of insomnia sufferers, including pro basketball player Andre Iguodala and Olympic runner Emma Coburn.
Quviviq, which won FDA approval in January and notched another regulatory nod in Europe this month, is the first commercial drug for Switzerland-based Idorsia, a spinout from pharma giant Johnson & Johnson’s buyout of Actelion. The dual orexin receptor antagonist competes in a difficult market against Eisai’s Dayvigo and Merck’s more established Belsomra, which has struggled to gain traction, along with a slew of cheaper generic and OTC sleeping pills.
Idorsia has gone all-in on marketing and hopes to set itself apart with phase 3 clinical trial data showing that the drug also reduced daytime sleepiness. Torr told Fierce Pharma Marketing in an interview earlier this month that the company was unleashing a 600-strong field team, including 500 reps to spread the word with HCPs.
On the consumer side, Diggs will share his sleep story on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels, and the company expects to debut a TV commercial starring the actor this fall.