Merck Serono picks Huntsworth for infertility work

Newly merged biopharmaceutical company Merck Serono has awarded Huntsworth Health the UK account for one of biggest selling drugs.

The agency will produce a new campaign for Gonal-f (follitropin alfa) combining advertising and promotional materials.

The drug is prescribed to supplement or replace naturally occurring follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) - low levels or lack of which is a major cause of infertility in men and women.

Gonal-f is an important product for Merck Serono, the company formed from last September's $13.5 billion acquisition of Swiss biotech Serono by Germany's Merck KGaA.

It was Serono's second biggest selling product last year, making $401 million in the first nine months of 2006 when it accounted for more than 20% of the company's total sales.

It is also the most widely prescribed gonadotropin in the world and leads the UK market. In 2005, England's GPs spent over £918,000  on Gonal-f prescriptions, well ahead of Ferring Pharmaceutical's rival Menopur/Menogon (menotrophin) and Organon's Puregon  (follitropin beta).

The Gonal-f account is one in a string of new wins for Huntsworth, which recently merged its advertising, medical education and PR agencies into a single, fully integrated company to become one of the largest of its kind in the UK.

The agency has recently picked up accounts from Roche UK, to run a major online patient support programme, and another prominent big pharma company for which it will run a major pan-European medical communications programme.

The agency is also working with Janssen-Cilag in the area of pain and with contract research organisation Quintiles on an international corporate communications account to produce a digital presentation promoting the CRO's work in phase I clinical trials.

"I've been running this company now for 12 years and this pitch season has been the busiest and most successful one we've had," said Huntsworth Health's chief executive David Rowley. "So, it's a very interesting time for us."

It is the company's first pitch season since its integration and launch under the banner of Huntsworth Health last September.

"It's given us critical mass," said Rowley. "In the past, we might have had the same opportunities, but as a 20 to 30-man agency pitching up against the big boys, now Huntsworth Health is the largest integrated healthcare agency in the UK."

With some 45 offices in 29 countries across Europe, the agency can also lay claim to the most extensive PR/med ed network of any global agency in the region, something Rowleybelieves has allowed the company to significantly up its game when it comes to pan-European pitches.

The agency now operates from two UK locations - Chiswick in London and Marlow in the Thames Valley. It combines the med ed and PR agencies Avenue HKM and Jago Pearce, the brand consultancies/full services ad agencies PBC and VB Communications, the new media agency Digital Media Works and the market research company Brand Health International.