The ACACIA PHARMA product, Barhemsys, was scheduled for launch in August 2020. We received the go-ahead in late February to develop all branded content, which was a tight timeline. This was especially so considering this was an all-new “rescue” antiemetic treatment for patients suffering from postoperative nausea and vomiting, or PONV, a therapeutic area that was without a new drug introduction in more than 20 years.

Our challenge was building out a full marketing campaign from brand position and strategic platform to taglines, product packaging, formulary kit, website, live and virtual booth development, and a full-on multichannel driver campaign to reach five distinct HCP target audiences.

Did we mention we had to do this all prior to launch, with only four months of development time?

Our teams across creative, medical, strategy, analytics, and client services pulled together and built out the Barhemsys strategic launch plan, timing out all deliverables to be created, developed, tested, and delivered, perfectly. But we hit just one rather critical snag in the middle of all our work: March 13, 2020. COVID-19 changed our world.

We effectively adapted our 2020 launch plan to go from a “live meeting” focus to a “virtual meeting” focus overnight. In less than 30 days, we had our brand look, feel, message, and tagline delivered, and our first virtual congress booths were built for an ANES event in April 2020.