The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) has started the nationwide “The Fight of Our Lives” campaign, creating a video and other materials to show the stories behind biotech breakthroughs and their effects on patients.
The video starts with patients, showing people at the moment they realize they or a loved one may have a health problem. Over plaintive music, a woman says, “It starts with a symptom, an unexpected test result, a diagnosis that changes everything.” The focus then shifts to drug developers, with a man saying, “It starts with a science teacher, a family member who gets sick, a stubborn determination to know why.”
That back and forth between patients and researchers continues throughout the first half of the video, leading to the point that the strings swell and the man says, “This is American biotech” as the stars and stripes flutter in the breeze. The video ends with the line, “This is the fight of our lives, and losing is not an option.”
The main video features patients that BIO has profiled in a set of short films. One film focuses on Ben, a child who gained weight at an alarming rate before receiving an investigational drug that transformed his life. The other videos look at the first patient to receive a CAR-T cell therapy for multiple sclerosis and a woman rebuilding her life after an antibiotic-resistant infection that led to multiple organ failure.
As well as publishing the videos on its campaign website, BIO plans to use national streaming, digital and out-of-home ads to get its message to people. Live events, which will take place throughout the year, are another part of the strategy.
BIO is running the campaign to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. biotech industry, which began with the founding of Genentech in 1976. The celebrations come at a tricky time for the sector, which faces a rapidly emerging rival biotech hotspot in China, an unpredictable FDA and most favored nation pricing.
