Obesity is in the spotlight thanks to a raft of new and pending therapies in the pipeline. However, Currax Pharmaceuticals’ Contrave, the old guard of weight loss meds, isn’t ceding its veteran status.
In fact, it’s doubling down on Contrave as an option with the launch of a new brand campaign “One Size Does Not Fit All.” The digital effort highlights the idea that different solutions fit different people, and includes the brand
website
along with digital and social media ads and posts, medical journal ads and education and in-office materials.
Ed Cinca
“The industry is most certainly propelling the conversation with the development and introduction of new molecules which is important and necessary,” said Ed Cinca, Currax’s SVP in global marketing and strategic alliance management. “For us, it’s recognizing that yes, Contrave is a pioneer in this space, it doesn’t mean that it’s stepping to the side.”
Currax is focusing the Contrave messaging — and differentiation — on emotional eating driven both by negative and positive factors, Cinca said. He estimated about 45% of people living with obesity suffer with emotional eating.
The campaign, for instance, features real patients shown pushing away bags that resemble packaged chips, but with words “comfort” and “stress” in place of the snack brand name.
Cinca also has heard emotional and life-changing stories from Contrave patients at medical conferences. One mom, for instance, told him about fitting through a small space by the hotel icemaker to fill a cooler for her kids’ sports tournament that day. Another woman showed him a selfie with her dog taken laying on the ground. As she proudly told him, she would have never tried getting on the ground before because of the fear of not being able to get back up.
Cinca is no stranger to the diabetes and weight loss industry. He spent 18 years at Novo Nordisk directly before his now one-year stint at Currax, and helped launch its current diabetes-turned-obesity drug Wegovy and its earlier Saxenda weight loss brand.
“There’s a lot of energy and excitement in the category now which is great — it’s really important for this category to have more voices and more advocacy,” he said.
Obesity is currently the most preventable cause of death in the US, with almost half of all adults expected to be diagnosed as such by 2030.
Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy is the first of the next generation of expected obesity treatments, already making waves in the market with initial demand far outstripping supplies. Eli Lilly has its own diabetes to weight loss candidate in the works. Its tirzepatide, now called Mounjaro, was approved for type 2 diabetes but is “currently evaluating tirzepatide in adults with obesity or overweight as part of the SURMOUNT clinical trial program,” a Lilly spokesperson said in an email.
Currax picked up Contrave in 2019 when it
acquired
Nalpropion Pharmaceuticals and is under patent protection through 2034. Contrave was first approved in 2014 and developed by Orexigen Therapeutics. Its two components, naltrexone and bupropion, are separately approved to treat alcohol and opioid dependence in the case of naltrexone, and for depression and seasonal affective disorder in the case of bupropion.
