Novartis is running a new disease awareness campaign for Sjögren's syndrome with help from dancer, choreographer, and TV personality Carrie Ann Inaba.
Sjögren's is a condition in which patients' glands that normally produce fluid, such as tears and saliva, stop working properly.
While there are many possible symptoms of Sjögren's syndrome, common ones include dry eyes and mouth, aching muscles and joints and extreme tiredness.
Inaba, 58, knows all about the condition, having been diagnosed with it in 2013. She is now lending her voice to Novartis’ “Sjöut for Sjögren’s” campaign and will be featured in a new video series and social media content.
The campaign features a new website that “is designed to empower and inform patients and help them have more meaningful discussions with their doctor, via features including patient testimonials, a doctor conversation tool, and an interactive quiz,” Novartis told Fierce Pharma Marketing in a statement.
There will soon be a new prompt enabling people to share their own “Sjöut” on social media. “The campaign also includes new TV and audio commercials, featuring a well-known song as the anthem to motivate patients to Sjöut,” Novartis added.
Sjöut is being launched in April for Sjögren’s Awareness Month.
The Swiss Big Pharma is currently working on phase 3 trials for its Sjögren’s hopeful ianalumab, a dual-mechanism, B-cell-depleting antibody that targets the protein BAFF-R.
Last August, Novartis reported topline data from two late-stage trials that both met their primary endpoints, with the candidate showing an improvement in disease activity—as measured by the EULAR Sjögren's syndrome disease activity index—at 52 weeks compared to placebo.
This has been a bright spot among a string of setbacks for new drugs against the condition. Novartis itself started last year by dropping its anti-CD40 antibody, iscalimab, for Sjögren’s, after becoming doubtful of its competitive profile.
The year before, another Big Pharma, Sanofi, crossed off Sjögren’s from the list of targeted indications for its CD40L monoclonal antibody frexalimab after seeing phase 2 efficacy data. More recently, Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals ended work on its own Sjögren's prospect abiprubart.