Held just after the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in southern France, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity has for years aimed to shine a spotlight on the world’s most creative brands and honor the best marketing, PR and comms teams.
Pharma has always been held in high regard here, seeing the awards for the Pharma Lions, Health and Wellness as well as Healthcare Network of the Year, and Healthcare Agency of the Year all being held on the inaugural day of the week-long event.
For years, pure-play pharma product campaigns took the top plaudits but, since the COVID pandemic in 2020, there has been a notable shift. In the post-pandemic years, pharma took a backseat to medical technology companies, as well as digital and audio-based firms who consistently took the top gongs over and ahead of pharma campaigns.
Last year we saw the start of a reset when Viatris won the Grand Prix for its campaign “Make Love Last” for its version of Viagra. This awareness push was specific to China, where DTC advertising is outlawed, and was for an off-patent med, so it marked a victory of sorts for an industry that had not seen a pharma company win the Grand Prix since 2019.
In 2026, however, Big Pharma came fully back as Novartis took the Grand Prix for its Super Bowl ad “Relax Your Tight End.” This prostate cancer screening push took all the elements from the current pharma marketing playbook: Sports- and celebrity-based, but with real patients and a mix of humor and seriousness to score a Cannes touchdown.
“We launched during the Super Bowl to meet audiences in a culturally relevant moment and help reduce anxiety around prostate cancer screening—without diminishing the seriousness of the disease,” explained Gail Horwood, Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at Novartis U.S., in an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing.
Horwood said Novartis was “encouraged to see healthcare work recognized for both cultural relevance and measurable impact” after the dearth of pharma wins.
“At Novartis, creativity is a key lever to our marketing approach and for driving behavior change, and forums like Cannes allow us to benchmark our work against the best in the industry.”
The winning didn’t stop there. Viatris also once again received the plaudits by winning Gold with its agency Ogilvy Health’s campaign for “Make Love Last.” Novartis too also received Silver for a different element of its Relax campaign, while Gilead Sciences Canada and Jazz Pharmaceuticals also picked up Bronze awards.
New rules in the age of AI
This year also saw the start of new rules that aimed to tighten up award entries and attempt to combat the rise of AI with better integrity rules.
This included a new “AI Integrity Handbook,” which set new standards for awards integrity in the age of AI, with a goal toward “protecting trust, creative legitimacy and transparency,” Cannes Lions said in a statement announcing the rules last year.
These changes came amid a storm of controversy where some entries had used doctored AI clips and fake news accounts.
Speaking to Fierce Pharma Marketing just before the Cannes Lions Festival, Lucy Doolan, Creative Director at London-based healthcare agency Havas SO, said the entries for Cannes Lions are “full on” because of the new rules and the “rigor needed to show that what you’re doing has been approved, but it is brilliant as it confirms the authenticity.”
Doolan said that “clients can be nervous about going really big on creativity because it can be a risk—but for us, the biggest risk is not to go creative,” in relation to Cannes.
Figures show this extra admin was too onerous for some as Cannes Lions saw 20,050 entries ahead of the start of the festival, down from nearly 27,000 in 2025.