World champion skier and Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn was a good sleeper until a serious knee injury in 2013 and subsequent surgery set her on a path of sleepless nights that lasted nearly a decade.
“I was laying in bed after surgery in a lot of pain and trying to sleep and I couldn’t,” she recalled in a sponsored interview on the "Today Show" last week. “And the anxiety behind it really just got me down this really bad path of repetitively not sleeping.”
The retired downhill skier is opening up about her sleep struggles as the newest celebrity spokeswoman for insomnia drug maker Idorsia and its new sleep medicine Quviviq.
Vonn joins a star-studded lineup of Idorsia spokespeople including “Friends” actress Jennifer Aniston, who stars in the unbranded “Seize the Night & Day” awareness campaign, and Broadway and TV actor Taye Diggs, who signed on as Quviviq’s first brand ambassador in May.
“Both Lindsey and Taye have great followers and represent a broad audience between the two of them, and we’re really excited for them to be partners,” Patricia Torr, president and general manager of Idorsia U.S., told Fierce Pharma Marketing in an interview.
Idorsia approached Vonn about the partnership after hearing the four-time World Cup champion make passing references to insomnia during interviews, said Michael Moye, Idorsia’s head of marketing.
“One of the things about Lindsey is she is very open to sharing the stories and the things that she’s been through. And this was one where she said, ‘I’m ready to dive in and share more,’” Moye said.
In an interview-style video on the Quviviq website, Vonn confides that her sleep troubles only worsened after she retired in 2019. She approached her insomnia the same way she tackled her athletic career: by “narrowing the field down in order to get to the top.”
“I didn’t just decide to be a champion skier. I worked at it,” said Vonn, who has three Olympic medals and 82 World Cup wins, the most of any female skier, to her name. Similarly, through process of elimination, she eventually found relief with Quviviq, she said.
Idorsia has gone all-in on marketing since winning FDA approval for the drug in January. It competes in a difficult market against Eisai’s Dayvigo and Merck’s more established Belsomra along with a slew of cheaper generic and OTC sleeping pills.
For now, Diggs and Vonn are promoting the drug in interviews, on social media and online but are slated to appear in new TV commercials for the drug planned to air in late summer or early fall, he said.
The company hopes that by hearing Vonn’s and Diggs’ stories, patients will be encouraged to seek treatment. Although insomnia affects more than 25 million Americans, many people with the condition feel like they’re alone, Moye said.
“We think people like Lindsey and Taye telling their story can spark people to say, ‘I’m not alone. There are resources out there, and I really do need to go talk to my doctor,’” he said.