AbbVie is swinging for the fences with its latest celebrity partner, teaming up with retired MLB star Dexter Fowler to raise awareness about inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Fowler, who won the World Series with the Chicago Cubs in 2016, was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in his second year playing pro baseball. Now retired, Fowler recalled in an AbbVie-sponsored Instagram post how he started experiencing “difficult gastrointestinal symptoms and using the bathroom more frequently” than usual before the diagnosis. The changes “made playing really challenging,” Fowler said.
AbbVie, which sells Rinvoq and Skyrizi for the treatment of IBD, held a virtual media event with Fowler and gastroenterologist Susan Kais, M.D., to discuss the condition this week. Fowler spoke about what he went through when he was first diagnosed.
“I was 22 years old. I had so much going on, and I was overwhelmed,” Fowler said. “I had no clue what [ulcerative colitis] was. There wasn't much [information] out there, so I actually got a book. It was 'Crohn's and Colitis for Dummies.'”
The book taught Fowler the differences between Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis—a distinction he was previously unable to explain when people wrongly assumed he had the former condition—and helped him understand what he was going through and how to overcome it. Now, a person in the position of the 22-year-old Fowler would have more resources, such as AbbVie’s Crohn’s & Ulcerative Colitis Companion.
“I wish I had something like that. Whatever you have questions about, you can just go through the website and try to find a solution,” Fowler said. “There's so many different variables and what works for one person might not work for another person. It's kind of a trial and error just to see how your body responds.”
Enlisting Fowler, a recently retired MLB All-Star who now works as a studio analyst, could help AbbVie address the perceived social stigmatization of IBD. Fowler said he “had a hard enough time going to the bathroom in a public restroom,” adding that to talk about his story “was difficult.” However, talking has been a positive for the retired baseball star because it has shown lots of people have similar issues.
AbbVie’s push to get people who have IBD symptoms to talk to their doctors comes as it works to grow sales of Rinvoq and Skyrizi to offset the loss of U.S. patent protection on its megablockbuster Humira. Rinvoq and Skyrizi, which treat conditions beyond IBD, generated sales of $7.7 billion last year. AbbVie expects the drugs’ combined sales to top the Humira peak, forecasting revenues of $21 billion in 2027.