The new pharma celebrities: Famous patients with social influence are ‘just getting started’

Biohaven CEO Vlad Coric doesn’t fit the mold of a typical “Keeping up with the Kardashians” viewer. However, he had a specific reason to watch a few years ago. One of the famous reality sisters, Khloé, was suffering with migraines, describing debilitating symptoms of severe pain and throwing up during the series filming.

Vlad Coric

As a physician and neurology specialist — and the head of a biopharma with then-new migraine oral med Nurtec — he wanted to know if she had heard of, or tried, any of the new class of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) inhibitors.

So he called her. Through an agent, that is, but he did speak directly to her about her migraine episodes. Kardashian asked a lot of questions, Coric said, and told him that no, she had never heard of CGRPs. She listened and took notes and, not long after that, ended up getting a prescription for Nurtec from her doctor, he said.

Then a month or two later, Coric reconnected with her after she responded well to the treatment, and he asked if she’d be willing to share her story. She agreed to share her personal success story, taking home a paycheck for her efforts as well, and in 2020 became then-fledgling Biohaven’s first official celebrity spokesperson.

And helped usher in a new style of pharma and celebrity promoters.

Celebrity pitches for pharma brand products, or appearances in unbranded disease awareness advertising, are nothing new, of course. The FDA loosened restrictions that opened the floodgates of direct-to-consumer TV ads — and celebrities starring in them — more than 25 years ago. TV show host Joan Lunden for then-prescription allergy med Claritin was one of the first in 1998, but she was followed quickly, and more famously, by former Sen. Bob Dole, who was hired by Pfizer to talk about erectile dysfunction shortly after the drugmaker’s approval of Viagra. (Dole’s ad did not mention the brand, but the Pfizer logo did appear at the end of the spot.)

Since then, actors and actresses, professional athletes and Olympians, singers and musicians, TV talk show hosts and reality show stars have inundated the airwaves with pharma product endorsements.

However, there is a new kind of celebrity endorser emerging. It’s no longer enough just to speak out in a national TV commercial or lend a famous face to a public health cause.

Modern day pharma spokescelebrities are also real patients, digital influencers and involved partners. They’re spreading the word to large social media followings and teaming up for more meaningful commitments. They’re getting involved earlier in the commercialization process to build out a strategy instead of relying on pop culture news hits when a campaign breaks, and pairing up with key opinion leaders and everyday patients to boost messages.

Matthew Lalin

“It’s not just ‘hey, we have this idea, now let’s plug in a celebrity.’ It’s about what the brand is trying to accomplish and how can pop culture help achieve that goal in an organic way,” said Matthew Lalin, co-founder of Starpower, which is now part of Real Chemistry. “The shift that we’re seeing leads me to believe we’re just getting started because it’s not just more volume, it’s more meaningful partnerships that are grounded in what the influencer celebrity story is.”

Celebrities can also be more important in the uber-crowded media and entertainment market place where consumers are often overwhelmed with choices as a way to grab people’s attention quickly.

Brent Rollins, a University of Georgia professor who has studied celebrity pharma endorsements, said, “You’ve got such a rise in digital and what plays in digital is a completely different ballgame. You have to pull someone’s attention in the first six to eight seconds to get someone not to hit skip ad on YouTube.”

Shifting along with digital media channel proliferation are consumer preferences and behaviors. Influencers now garner almost equal sway as stars, and according to some studies, can be even more influential, especially with younger audiences.

Erin Willis

A Morning Consult report found overall that Gen Z is more likely to trust the influencers they follow (52%) than their favorite athletes or celebrities (44%) for product recommendations. Millennials showed similar tendencies, with 50% preferring influencers’ picks compared to 38% for favorite celebrities, the study found.

It may also ring truer in pharma and healthcare marketing.

“Research has found that micro and nano influencers are more influential than celebrities like the Kardashians. Part of that is just that there’s more interaction and engagement within smaller communities,” said Erin Willis, a University of Colorado pharma and DTC advertising researcher who’s studying the changing role of patient influencers. “… For decades, patients have looked online for communities and groups, but now these patient influencers are using bigger platforms like Instagram or YouTube to curate these disease communities.”

That’s also what the new spokescelebs are doing. Pop singer Nick Jonas headlined Dexcom’s Super Bowl ad, but also posts videos and messages on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok showing himself using the new G7 continuous glucose monitor. Meanwhile, some of Pfizer’s stable of celebrity endorsers for Covid-19 vaccination and treatment appear on national TV ads — Martha Stewart, Charlie Puth, Pink, Questlove and Queen Latifah (voice) — but even more of them are on social media.

There’s another difference among next-gen spokescelebrities. Instead of pharma company ad agencies scouring for star connections, the talent agents are bringing celebs’ stories to pharma and healthcare agencies to let them know they have connections to a particular condition or disease.

“It’s almost flipped from when I started doing this 20 years ago,” Lalin said. “The agents, managers and the publicists come to us to say we know you’re this bridge between Hollywood and healthcare, so just so you know, we have clients X, Y and Z who are interested in sharing their story, so keep us in mind.”

Authenticity is at a premium these days as well. While the recent Super Bowl blitz of celebrity consumer ads can afford to pop in a bunch of star cameos — Ben Affleck working the window at Dunkin or Meghan Trainor dropping into a Pringles ad — the gravity of pharma health conditions, require a minimum real connection to the condition being promoted.

That was the connection Urovant Sciences made earlier this year when it enlisted actor and advocate Holly Robinson Peete to talk about her issues with overactive bladder and her use of its newly approved Gemtesa. Peete is repping its “Time to Go” campaign alongside urologist Ashley Tapscott.

Alana Darden Powell

Urovant VP of marketing, Alana Darden Powell, said, “More and more people are influenced by the consumption of social media and people want a personal testimony of someone that can relate an authentic ‘this is my experience’ story. For us, obviously Holly is a celebrity in her own right … but even if someone isn’t familiar with her at all, they will be familiar with the struggle that she has.”

And when it works, it works. Biohaven’s Nurtec got five million visits after Khloé Kardashian’s social promotion of the migraine drug. It also leapfrogged AbbVie in oral CGRP treatments, grabbing a majority market share within a year of Khloé’s ambassadorship — along with other celebs, including Whoopi Goldberg, NASCAR driver Cody Ware and actress Tori Spelling.

Kardashian is no longer repping for the brand and Pfizer is now steering the Nurtec brand after its Biohaven acquisition, but Coric is still a believer in the immediate and effective impact a celebrity can have for a new brand.

“I think celebrities are actually more important than in the past because of the modern tools we have with social media and targeted advertising,” he said. “ … With that comes an opportunity to shrink the amount of time it takes to get the word out about new therapies.”

He also plans to use celebrities again — if and when Biohaven’s emerging portfolio pipeline notches another approval.

“We will definitely use them. It’s an important part of the education and there’s no doubt we will look again,” he said, adding his take on the future of pharma celebrity endorsements.

If people stray from a genuine story, that’s not going to work. People will see through that, so only use it when it’s genuine. And having a mix of celebrities and other individuals, who may become celebrities because of the advertising, but it’s about many voices to try to help educate people about a new therapy. I think that’s the recipe for success – it can’t just be one person and one voice.

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