Sun Pharma is opening up a new chapter in its high-fashion marketing efforts for alopecia areata treatment Leqselvi with its first DTC commercial for the med.
After last month’s team-up with fashion designer Christian Siriano on awareness campaign “Regrowth Restyled” during New York Fashion Week and Alopecia Areata Awareness Month, the company is taking its Leqselvi marketing push from the runway to TV with a 60-second spot that rolled out Oct. 27.
The Leqselvi ad opens with a view of a person’s scalp with visible hair loss as they stand in the shower watching hair collect in the drain. As the camera focuses on a hairball left in a brush, a voiceover and big red on-screen text that contrasts with the grey bathroom scene asks viewers with severe alopecia areata if “seeing hair left behind” weighs on them. To “start growing hair back fast,” those who relate can take Leqselvi, the ad recommends.
Cut to Brandi, a real patient who takes Leqselvi after struggling with the disease for 54 years. Brandi walks through a brighter hair salon set as the ad takes on an upbeat tone and explains how Leqselvi helped her and others like Vince, another real patient who smiles from his seat at the salon. An image of Vince’s scalp before taking Leqselvi is displayed on screen, showing a stark contrast from the full head of hair he sports now.
The same goes for Brandi, who regrew all her hair by almost 24 weeks, she says as her own before-and-after shots appear. After hopping in the salon chair for a blowout while a voiceover details some of Leqselvi’s prescribing information, the spot ends with Brandi confidently tossing her now-styled long locks.
Brandi and Vince are two of the 300,000 U.S. adults who are estimated to be impacted by alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes varying degrees of hair loss. As Sun explained in “Regrowth Restyled,” hair loss from alopecia areata affects more than just physical appearance, as it can also make a mark on people’s self-esteem and inner confidence.
“A lot of times, people think that it’s just hair, and it’s so much beyond that,” Sun’s head of marketing Stephanie Loiseau explained in an interview. “It negatively impacts the way that people feel about themselves.”
With its first Leqselvi DTC ad, Sun wanted to bring to life the impacts of the alopecia areata that go “beyond the aesthetic aspect,” Loiseau said, adding that by showing real Leqselvi patients, the commercial can show that fast hair regrowth is “something that is not just a dream.”
The new spot will launch across connected TV, an intentional move favoring streaming platforms that can reach more of Leqselvi’s target audience than standard linear TV.
It’s been two years since the FDA first signed off on Leqselvi in 2024, but the drug’s official U.S. rollout only kicked off in July 2025 after Sun settled a legal dispute with Incyte that had blocked the launch. JAK inhibitor Leqselvi (deuruxolitinib) is a deuterated form of ruxolitinib, which Incyte markets as oral Jakafi and topical Opzelura. Deuterated drugs replace hydrogen atoms with deuterium atoms to effectively boost a medicine’s pharmacokinetic properties.
Once Sun and Incyte came to an agreement that included a limited, non-exclusive license to certain patents, Leqselvi could enter into the lucrative U.S. alopecia market and compete for share with Pfizer’s Litfulo and Lilly’s Olumiant. Sun hasn’t yet broken down sales of its med, but Nuvama Institutional Equities analyst Shrikant Akolkar previously tagged potential peak sales of $900 million, with up to $400 million by 2030.