With many of the healthcare industry’s top marketing minds converging in the City of Brotherly Love this past week, the galvanizing power of humor, authenticity and a little outside-of-the-box thinking in an ever-changing consumer landscape was again at the forefront of Fierce Pharma Week.
Running Monday through Thursday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, the second incarnation of Fierce Pharma Week covered a wide range of topics spanning marketing, medical affairs, public relations and communications, and commercialization. A highlight of the festivities was the 2026 Fierce Pharma Marketing Awards, replete with trophies, prosecco and a standing ovation for CineHealth Lifetime Achievement Award winner and Emmy-winning journalist Maria Menounos.
But in between the action, there was plenty more fun to be had and just as many nuggets of wisdom (and pretzels) on offer across a swath of booths, exhibits, panels and one-on-one interviews populating the convention center’s stages and exhibit hall.
Between a Cadent-sponsored claw machine, a Health Monitor aura portrait studio, a Syneos Health magician, a Sermo AI fortune teller and more, the lively exhibit floor was abuzz with energy and flowing with unique networking opportunities. Attendees’ hunger for sweet treats and fresh marketing insights was satiated all week long, whether through the packed schedule of sessions and speakers or the custom pancake artist and roaming cannoli offerings (please don’t ask our reporters how many cannoli they consumed).
Plus, the puppy pen from last year’s inaugural event made its triumphant return, ensuring all attendees could access some fuzzy, four-legged comfort on demand. Some may even be bringing a new fluffy friend home with them. Each of the puppies seen wagging around the GoodRx Puppy Park garnered adoption applications, Fierce can confirm.
How pharmas connect with patients and the broader communities they serve can be more art than science, but one theme that rang true across panels and events was the importance of sincerity.
Comedian Damon Wayans, a patient advocate and spokesperson for the humor-forward Genentech campaign “All Eyes of DME,” said that element is at the heart of his work with the Roche subsidiary to raise awareness of diabetes-related vision concerns.
In outlining his health advocacy journey in an interview with Fierce this week, Wayans recalled the type 2 diabetes diagnosis he received in his late 40s, connecting it to his own mother’s experience with the disease.
After taking steps to manage his condition, Wayans now carries himself as an example to his community and close circle. In terms of the Genentech campaign, he said a more relatable approach to DME awareness is one he had a personal hand in, recognizing that humor is a “great way to reach people’s hearts.”
Humor also helped carry home a Fierce Pharma Marketing Awards win for Novartis and Digitas’ “Relax Your Tight End” campaign at this year’s event, featuring NFL star tight ends like Rob Gronkowski and Tony Gonzalez encouraging prostate cancer screenings with the assurance, “relax, it’s just a blood test.”
Argenx took a similar approach and scored its second Marketing Awards win with its “CIDP Unscripted” online learning video series, which partners with legendary improv troupe the Upright Citizens Brigade to help patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) build confidence and improve communication with doctors and their families.
Those genuine connections, whether formed through humor or vulnerability, continued to carry weight during the awards gala when Menounos appeared to a standing ovation as she was honored by CineHealth for her courage in sharing her story of battling two types of cancer and other health issues.
Tracey Yaw, festival director of the CineHealth International Health and Wellness Film and Video Festival, which was again incorporated into the Fierce Pharma Marketing Awards this year, told Fierce in an interview that she’s “so passionate about this and being able to bring people’s stories to life and giving them a platform.”
Even beyond the vast glass windows of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, conversations were focused on how companies connect with consumers, who those consumers are and what they want as the industry responds to a rapidly evolving commercial reality.
The sentiment was on display in a Fierce interview with Novo CEO Mike Doustdar earlier this week, with the helmsman sitting down virtually to discuss a key rebrand that has seen the Danish drugmaker drop the Nordisk from its name in most of its everyday branding.
With that change also came a modification to Novo’s purpose and a declaration of “The Novo Way,” which includes customer obsession, competitiveness, clarity and, finally, care and integrity.
Meanwhile, in shifting to a mantra that “Lasting Health Starts Now,” Novo has moved away from its previous declaration of purpose to drive change to defeat serious chronic diseases.
“Increasingly, the people we serve tell you that we cannot see ourselves in that statement,” Doustdar explained during the conversation with Fierce.
Many of Novo’s customers don’t consider themselves patients or people with a chronic disease, especially those taking a medication for weight loss, Doustdar pointed out.
“That disconnect makes you go back and think: How can I realign myself again to those I’m serving,” he added.
As for the ever-important question of conference swag, we’d be remiss not to mention that Fierce Pharma Marketing’s Zoey Becker amassed a veritable menagerie of stuffed critters, including a zebra, panther and meerkat. Regarding her cat’s reaction to these new friends, Fierce will keep you posted.