Excellence in Media Relations - UK

Summary of work

Winner: The UK launch of fingolimod (Gilenya) - the world's first pill for multiple sclerosis

The UK launch of fingolimod, the world’s first pill for multiple sclerosis (MS), followed 18 years of R&D and huge anticipation from the MS community.

Against a backdrop of media saturation with MS stories and particularly about fingolimod – due to previous successful media campaigns – the agency achieved the holy grail of media relations: widespread coverage of the same product at multiple time points with consistent messages.

The agency applied its thorough understanding of the key ingredients that make a great story – newness, controversy, conflict and human interest – and made the story fresh and exciting at every stage.

Judges comments

A well explained strategy – strategically the most impressive of all entries, this showed fresh, tenacious thinking. It’s remarkable to find new ways to say the same thing over and over and to keep getting it reported – one story running on five separate occasions throughout the year shows incredible engagement by the media. Excellent work from a multi-disciplinary team.