A top 10 multinational pharmaceutical firm.

An anti-epilepsy drug.

As one of the oldest anti-epilepsy drugs, it had little competition until the introduction of Ciba Geigy's Tegretol. Ciba Geigy launched a major marketing offensive to capture share. Their strategy was built around several of our client’s drug’s cosmetic side effects as well as a Ciba-funded study demonstrating statistically interpreted cognitive impairment scores by a small group of patients on our client’s drug. Many independent studies, however, showed that Tegretol was not as effective as our client’s drug for seizure prevention.

Blunt the impact of this competitive offensive.

I conducted research into the deep-seated concerns and motivations among people with epilepsy. This revealed a desire, above all else, to prevent a seizure. The key insight I developed here was: The devastating physical and emotional result of a seizure made any other concerns about a drug a very distant consideration for both patients and their physicians. To this end, we developed a strategy of reinforcing the unmatched record and history of our client’s drug in preventing seizures. To carry out the strategy and bring validity to the message, we assembled an Advisory Board of nationally recognized Neurologists. The majority of these physicians were also Epileptologists. This board published white papers, wrote peer-reviewed articles, and spoke at medical meetings on the critical need for preventing even one seizure from happening. We developed a pharmacoeconomic story to additionally support the costs resulting from a seizure, and were able to position our client’s drug as the standard for seizure prevention.

Client’s drug retained its lead position marketing dominance and is, even today, regarded as the gold standard in seizure prevention.