Bristol Myers Squibb is launching a new ad for its blockbuster-in-waiting drug Zeposia as it focuses on a new future for those with ulcerative colitis (UC).
We see one woman in the ad asking her doppelgänger, who is about to leave the house, “Hey, what are you doing? We have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis.”
“That’s the old me, before I started taking Zeposia,” says the doppelgänger to the camera. The ad then plays on the fact that Zeposia is “just one pill” and thus not an injection like some other rival therapies.
“Old me is still catching up with the Zeposia me,” she says, and we see her drive off into the wilderness, eat lunch on a boat with friends and walk up to a lighthouse.
The inference here is that she is not being troubled by her UC, a condition that can cause multiple bouts of sudden bowel movements, fatigue and stomach pain.
This builds on BMS' last big UC ad campaign, launched in early 2022, that ran the tagline: “I won’t let UC stop me from being me” and featured a man and his daughter traveling and enjoying the outside, free from the worry of UC symptoms.
The UC market has become a competitive one, with old stalwarts like AbbVie’s $20 billion-a-year TNF drug Humira leading the way in the U.S. and the likes of Takeda’s integrin therapy Entyvio and Johnson & Johnson’s IL-12/23 antibody Stelara all vying for market share.
There are newer drugs looking to get in on the action as well, like Eli Lilly’s experimental drug mirikizumab, though there is likely to be no forthcoming FDA approval for this med due to ongoing manufacturing issues.
BMS is hoping Zeposia as an oral drug can be a new option for patients, but it also competes with Pfizer’s oral JAK inhibitor Xeljanz.
Zeposia, which came out of BMS’ Celgene buyout, was first approved in 2020 by the FDA for multiple sclerosis (MS). But, like so many of its competitors, it’s going after a growing number of autoimmune conditions. It nabbed the label for moderate to severe UC in May 2021, making it the first S1P receptor modulator to do so.
The medication has a list price of approximately $90,000, and sales of Zeposia are projected to range from $1.6 billion to a peak of $5 billion, depending on which analyst you ask and potential additional labels it can acquire. Sales reached $250 million last year as it continues its path toward becoming a blockbuster.
BMS had a tough launch in MS, coming after a two-year roller coaster to even get approved, and sales were further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.