Now showing at a theater near you: overactive bladder, the sequel

I’m sure you know what a night out at the movies means. Pay a ridiculous admission price to sit on a squeaky seat and hope your neighbor isn’t the fidgety kind who also bought the super-giant box of popcorn!

But there’s something else you can look forward to at the movies these days. And that’s drug advertising.

It just started last year. And the first drug to make the silver screen is Myrbetriq, an Rx for overactive bladder.

And you can expect more and more drugs to start making an appearance on the big screen, too.

But wasn’t it enough that we have to hear about liver damage, UTIs, high blood pressure, cancer and “trouble emptying your bladder” on television?

I mean, who plans a night out to have to listen to all these terrible side effects?  It would be like going to a restaurant, only to find out your table is next door to a medical clinic!

But here’s the most ridiculous part of this Myrbetriq ad.

The drug’s maker, Astellas, has partnered with an app called “RunPee.” That’s something you can download on your phone that will give you “carefully selected” times during a movie to run out to the bathroom and pee.

Okay, that’s funny, and it may even be useful on occasion. But isn’t that what this risky drug, the one with all these terrible side effects, is supposed to fix – so you could sit through a whole movie without having to run and pee?

But the FDA knows, and anyone who takes Myrbetriq knows, that the drug doesn’t work very well. Even the FDA advisory committee meeting that reviewed Myrbetriq before it was approved said its benefits are “almost as marginal as is possible.”

And that placebo seemed to work better!

So in a sense, partnering with this RunPee app is really a brilliant marketing move.

Because if your drug doesn’t work, there’s an app for that…

Source:

“Using movie genre targeting to reach female audiences: MYRBETRIQ and RunPee” NCM Media Networks, blog.ncm.com