Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has teamed up with Pete Shaw, making the retired professional football player the star of its “Play by Play” educational heart disease initiative.
Shaw has transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a progressive heart disease treated by products including Alnylam’s Amvuttra. “Play by Play” tells Shaw’s story. In a six-minute video on the campaign website, Shaw, his wife Kari and his cardiologist Rajeev Mohan, M.D., discuss the symptoms leading up to the ATTR-CM diagnosis, his experience on Amvuttra and the implications for others.
“I want people to be aware of this disease,” Shaw says in the video. “About 4% of Black Americans carry the V122I gene. It is hereditary, so it could be in my family. I could pass it on to my children. My son had the hereditary gene variant. He didn't know and I didn't know.”
Starting with the “Play by Play” name, Alnylam’s campaign materials are dotted with parallels between sports and ATTR-CM. Just as “the power of football is built play by play,” the strength of Amvuttra is built on “making precise interventions where they matter,” Tolga Tanguler, chief commercialization officer at Alnylam, said in a statement.
The stage is set for more sporting analogies. While Shaw is kicking off the campaign, Alnylam called “Play by Play” a U.S. educational initiative featuring former professional athletes living with ATTR-CM. Across the campaign, the biotech will share personal stories to help people recognize ATTR-CM symptoms and to encourage informed conversations with healthcare professionals.
Alnylam is rolling out the campaign in the aftermath of a July sales guidance cut that raised questions about the prospects and positioning of Amvuttra in a market served by BridgeBio and Pfizer. While the rivals provide competition for Amvuttra, John Kennedy, Alnylam's TTR franchise global commercialization lead, made the case this month that there are benefits to having more companies raising awareness.
“As there are more voices in the market, there’s better awareness, better understanding of the disease, we expect that diagnosis will happen more consistently and earlier, and that’s a good thing,” Kennedy said at a Wells Fargo event. “In fact, we intend to continue to facilitate that.”