Janssen-Cilag: New knowledge of migraine treatment

From treatment to prevention with Janssen-Cilag

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Challenge
Medicinal client Janssen-Cilag has developed Topimax, a new, prophylactic treatment for patients with migraines. The challenge was to get practicing doctors to prescribe the treatment to their migraine patients (create the action of trying Topimax).

Goals:
• To generate attention toward the problem that 2-3% of the population suffers from headache due to overdosing. I.e. that they take so much acute migraine medicine that it gives a headache as a side effect. And that only about half of migraine patients have adequate success with acute treatment.

• To break down barriers against preventative treatment

• To create a dialogue between migraine experts and practicing doctors.

Solution
From analyses and interviews we discovered that there is a deal of resistance against prophylactic treatment of migraines. Migraines are an actual disease, and most patients are heavily medicated. Headache as a result of overdosing is the most debilitating side effect. That’s why it was important to first establish a general recognition of the opportunity for prophylactic treatment to break down these opinion- and experienced-based barriers and thereby pave the way for marketing of Topimax. So we started a collaboration with Danish Headache Center.

Close collaboration with Danish Headache Center
Danish Headache Center is a knowledge base that researches and treats migraines. Practicing doctors refer migraine patients to Danish Headache Center when they conclude that they can’t help the patients themselves.

In association with the launch of Topimax, we wanted to bring in the Headache Center as a collaborative partner because they convey authority in the migraine area’s target group. Janssen-Cilag would also be able to profit (in compassion, brand value and attention) by facilitating a closer dialogue between the experts and the practicing doctors, for the benefit of patients.

By widening the theme of migraine treatment with a product launch focus, Janssen-Cilag attained ownership of the ability to facilitate knowledge exchange between the treatment groups and give doctors the experience of receiving valuable information from the Headache Center.

In turn, the Headache Center got a chance to go into dialogue with practicing doctors. They could share their research results and educate the doctors in migraine treatment.

The reason why we were able to include the Headache Center is because researchers also want to be able to work to prevent migraines. As they have experienced good results with it, they want to help spread information about advantages and disadvantages, though without promoting products.

So Topimax was kept behind the curtain until the first dialogue segment between practicing doctors and Danish Headache Center was completed.

The target group was the 517 practicing doctors in Denmark who see the most migraine patients. They were identified via historic behavior (prescriptions/patients). The campaign was therefore targeted toward those doctors who see migraine patients in their practice. On average, a practicing doctor sees 4 migraine patients per month, divided so that 48% of the female doctors see 80% of the total number of migraine patients.

In 1 year, 10% of the population will have experienced one or more migraine attacks.

Seminar in preventative treatment of migraines at Danish Headache Center
Firstly, the 517 practicing doctors who see the most migraine patients were invited to a conference in Århus and Copenhagen, where Janssen-Cilag was hosted a lecture at the Danish Headache Center. The practicing doctors received professional input here and the opportunity to discuss patient cases.

Local educational meetings
The practicing doctors could then sign up for follow-up workshops with their local neurologists, where one went more in-depth with the problems, exchanged experiences and received more information about the preventative treatment options, namely, Topimax.

Involving follow-up email after the seminar
After the seminar, everyone, both participants and non-participants, received a follow-up email including a summary of the seminar, online access to videos of Danish Headache Center’s lectures, and a number of tools that could be used in consultations with migraine patients (the Headache Diary, dosing charts, etc). Here, we brought Topimax forward and allowed the product launch to initiate direct dialogue with the doctors.

In a survey, the practicing doctors could give their own opinions of and experiences with preventative treatment of migraines, as well as their conclusions of Topimax. Seminar participants also had the chance to evaluate the seminar. The evaluations were passed on to the lecturers, so they could have feedback of their presentations.

Individualized persuasion
Finally, we used the answers in an individualized email to give feedback on each doctor’s answers with relevant argumentation and input about what Danish Headache Center’s views are of the respective problems.

In this way we brought a product launch up to full focus on the entire problem field, and we put focus on the topic of preventative treatment of migraines for both individual doctors and for their professional forum over a longer-lasting time period.

Results
• We involved and motivated the Headache Center

• 517 seminar invitations were sent out

• 160 doctors participated in the seminar (31%)

• 517 doctors were affected individually by results from the dialogue (individualized email/default)

Using the dialogue, we confirmed that headaches as a result of overdosing is a problem, and that doctors thereby are interested in prophylactic treatment methods in order to help patients more effectively. With this recognition, we could generate involvement and interest for tools that diagnose, including a headache calendar, headache diary and patient cases.

Sales numbers: confidential